Musk's satellite internet provider Starlink has said that it would not uphold the court's ban on the social media platform. Starlink has over 250,000 customers in the nation.
"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," said Justice Dino, siding with chief justice Alexandre de Moraes and upholding the ban via majority. "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."
De Moraes, who Musk has said should be impeached, told all telecom and internet providers in the nation that X must be shut down and made unavailable through their services. His reason is that Musk no longer has legal representation in Brazil, which is due to the former legal representative having fled the country rather than face arrest. De Moraes also froze Starlink's assets in Brazil."He should be impeached for violating his oath of office," Musk said on X. "Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes."
Brazil's telecom regulator Anatel told internet service providers to block X, and X began to be inaccessible in the country on Saturday, both on the web and via mobile devices. Starlink, however, has refused to comply with that directive. "Market research group Emarketer says some 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, access X at least once per month," Fast Company reports.
De Moraes froze Starlink's assets because X, owned by Musk, did not pay "fines X was ordered to pay due to its failure to turn over some documents," Reuters reports. The outlet further states that there is reason to believe the court will uphold the ruling and X will be banned in Brazil.
The battle between Musk and de Moraes has been ongoing. The justice demanded that X turn over documents relating to political opponents of the ruling regime. X refused. Many employees of X in Brazil fled rather than face arrest, including lawyers.
X wrote on the platform last week that the shut down from de Moraes was "simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents."
"When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts," X said.
In response to Musk, de Moraes said that those statements show that X "clearly intends to continue to encourage posts with extremism, hate speech and anti-democratic discourse, and to try to withdraw them from jurisdictional control."
The nation has a history of demanding that social media platforms turn over user data and took aim at WhatsApp in 2015 and 2016 over the platform's refusal to turn over that information. De Moraes also has threatened Telegram with a ban for the same thing. Telegram appointed a local legal representative and was able to stay online.
X has not appointed a new legal rep since their previous one faced jail time for X's non-compliance in turning over user data and private information. The freezing of Starlink's assets, Starlink said, is unlawful.
They stated that "This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied—unconstitutionally—against X. It was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil. We intend to address the matter legally."
