A Brazilian Supreme Court panel has upheld the decision of one of its Justices to block X (formerly twitter) nationwide, as disclosed by the Court’s website.
According to apnews.com:
The broader support among justices deals a blow to Musk and his supporters who have sought to characterize Justice Alexandre de Moraes as a renegade and authoritarian censor of political speech.The panel is comprised of five of the full bench’s 11 justices, including de Moraes, who last Friday ordered the platform blocked for having failed to name a local legal representative, as required by law.
X will remain blocked until it complies with his orders and pays outstanding fines that as of last week exceeded $3 million, according to his decision.
De Moraes went ahead to set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access X.
Some legal experts challenged the grounds for that decision and how it will be enforced, including Brazil’s bar association which said it would request the Supreme Court review that provision.
Brazil is one of the largest markets for X, owned by American investor, Elon Musk, with tens of millions of users.
