Brazil Supreme Court keeps suspension of access to social network X

The first chamber of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) today unanimously upheld the decision of Justice Alexandre de Moraes to suspend social network X in Brazil for failure to comply with court orders.

The trial was held in the virtual plenary session of the court and the four justices (Flávio Dino, Cristiano Zanin, Cármen Lúcia Antunes and Luiz Fux) placed their votes in the electronic system with their opinion similar to that of De Moraes, rapporteur of the case.

The magistrates also followed De Moraes’ understanding that a fine of 50 thousand reais (about 10 dollars) should be applied to people and companies that use “technological subterfuges” to maintain the use of X, such as VPN.

In the last of the five votes inserted in the court system, Fux issued a warning about De Moraes’ initial decision.

He considered the suspension of X is valid, as long as it does not affect indiscriminately natural and legal persons and who have not participated in the process.

“(…) unless they use the platform to falsify this decision, with manifestations prohibited by the constitutional order, such as expressions revealing racism, fascism, Nazism, obstructions of criminal investigations or incitement to crimes in general,” he explained.

He also reasoned in the vote that, as the determination under analysis is provisional and was given on an urgent basis, this impact can be reanalyzed in a subsequent trial, when the ministers debate the content of the entire open confrontation between X and Brazilian institutions.

Since April, the South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, owner of X, has failed to comply with several orders from De Moraes to block accounts investigated by the Supreme Court, accused of challenging Brazilian democracy and legislation.

Musk also failed to pay the fines, which amount to 18.35 million reais (about four million dollars) for failure to comply with court orders.

The businessman also published images satirizing the minister in the same X and ended up included as investigated in the case of the digital militias, of which De Moraes is the rapporteur.

X closed its office in Brazil on August 17, alleging that the judge threatened to arrest the company’s legal representative in the country.

In the ruling on Friday that determined the suspension of X, De Moraes said that, when it was summoned, said platform incurred in judicial disobedience and decided, in a criminal manner, to spread a message inciting hatred against the Supreme Court.

“The criminal instrumentalization of several social networks, especially the X network, is also being investigated in other countries,” he stressed.