Brazil’s Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes has just issued an order for the immediate and full suspension of X (formerly Twitter), instructing internet providers to block the social media platform. Reacting to the news, American conservative activist Charlie Kirk posted, “They went from a Trump-style president to a Kamala-style leftist, and 𝕏 gets shut down. America is just one election away from this.”
Justice Moraes has taken the extraordinary step of freezing the finances of another Musk-owned business in Brazil, SpaceX and its Starlink satellite internet service, to collect fines imposed on X.
Starlink has vowed to fight the order, even going as far as to say it will make the popular service free in Brazil if necessary.
The country’s Supreme Court also declared that anyone using a VPN to access X after its suspension could face fines of up to ~$8,800.
The New York Times reports:
Mr. Musk closed X’s office in Brazil last week after Justice Moraes threatened arrests for ignoring his orders to remove X accounts that he said broke Brazilian laws.
X said on Thursday that it viewed Justice Moraes’ orders as illegal and that it planned to break their legal seal and publish them. “Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders,” the company said in a statement.
Mr. Musk and Justice Moraes have been sparring for months. Mr. Musk says Justice Moraes is illegally censoring conservative voices. Justice Moraes says Mr. Musk is illegally obstructing his work to rid the Brazilian internet of hate speech and attacks on democracy.
After the Brazilian Supreme Court’s X account posted on Wednesday that Mr. Musk had 24 hours to name a new representative in Brazil, Mr. Musk responded with an image of toilet paper with Justice Moraes’s name on it.
While the fight is far from over, the world’s leading micro-blogging network is on the brink of going dark in South America’s largest and most populous nation, with no one knowing how long it will last.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
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