‘A party that intentionally fails to comply with court decisions appears to consider itself above the rule of law,’ one of the judges wrote.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court on Sept. 2 ruled to uphold a countrywide ban and fines on Elon Musk’s X social media platform amid a high-profile spat between the billionaire and the court.
Three judges of a five-member panel of Brazil’s high court formed a majority to uphold Justice Alexandre de Moraes’s previous ruling shutting down the platform for not complying with local regulations.
Justices Flavio Dino and Cristiano Zanin sided with de Moraes, forming a majority before Justices Luiz Fux and Carmen Lucia had cast their votes. Moraes and Musk have been locked in a monthslong feud after X was required to block accounts implicated in investigations of the alleged spreading of distorted news and what court officials said is hate speech.
“It is not possible for a company to operate in the territory of a country and intend to impose its vision on which rules should be valid or applied,” Dino said in joining with de Moraes. “A party that intentionally fails to comply with court decisions appears to consider itself above the rule of law. And so it can turn into an outlaw.”
X was taken down in Brazil, one of its largest markets, in the early hours of Aug. 31 following a decision by de Moraes, after the platform missed a court-imposed deadline to name a legal representative in Brazil as required by local law.
In a shutdown order issued last week, de Moraes wrote that X has to be shut down until the firm complies with the order and set a daily fine of $8,900 for individuals or firms who attempt to circumvent the ban by using a VPN, also known as a virtual private network, or through another way.
Over the weekend, Musk fired off multiple X posts that criticized de Moraes, with one saying that “he should be impeached for violating his oath of office” and that his “actions are against the will of the Brazilian people he is supposed to represent.”
Some critics, including a professor of political science at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said they believe that the ban and fines are overboard.
“I used VPNs a lot in authoritarian countries like China to continue accessing news sites and social media. It never occurred to me that this type of tool would be banned in Brazil. It’s dystopian,” professor Maurício Santoro wrote on X before the ban went into effect.
