X to be reinstated in Brazil after complying with Supreme Court demands

Brazil’s Supreme Court said Tuesday, October 8, it was lifting a ban on Elon Musk’s social network X, which had been blocked in its biggest Latin American market for over a month amid a row over disinformation.

“I authorize the immediate return of the activities” of the social platform, Judge Alexandre de Moraes said in his ruling, after X settled millions of dollars in fines for failing to comply with a series of court orders.

He gave Brazil’s communications regulator 24 hours to make X accessible again to its millions of Brazilian users.

Moraes has been embroiled in a standoff with Musk, the world’s richest man, for months over a flood of online disinformation related to Brazil’s 2022 election campaign.

On August 31, the tensions came to a head when Moraes dramatically blocked X for failing to deactivate the accounts of dozens of supporters of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and to name a new legal representative in Brazil.

The row, which pitted freedom of expression against corporate responsibility, was closely watched worldwide.

A furious Musk lashed out at Moraes by calling him an “evil dictator,” but X eventually complied with all of Moraes’s demands in order to have the suspension lifted.

Moraes, for his part, accused the platform of undermining democracy by allowing disinformation to flourish – a position backed by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who declared that the state would not “be intimidated by individuals, companies or digital platforms that believe themselves to be above the law.”

X eventually complied with all of Moraes’s demands in order to have the suspension lifted. Last week, Moraes confirmed that the company had also settled around $5.2 million in fines

Biggest Latin American market

With more than one mobile phone per inhabitant, Brazilians are among the most connected people in the world. X had 22 million users in the country before it was blocked.

X’s fight with Moraes began during the October 2022 election, in which Bolsonaro failed to win a second term. It escalated following attacks by Bolsonaro supporters on federal buildings in Brasilia after Lula’s inauguration in January 2023.

Halfway through its suspension X briefly made a return in Brazil in mid-September, after a technical workaround which it claimed was “inadvertent.” But it went back offline again after Moraes threatened it with more fines for non-compliance.