Elon Musk, left, and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
Reuters (left) | Getty Images (right)
Elon Musk's “X” faces heavy daily fines in Brazil for allegedly circumventing a ban on the service there, according to a statement from the country's Supreme Court on Thursday.
The fines imposed by Brazil's Supreme Court amount to 5 million Brazilian reals, or about $920,000 a day. The court said it would continue to impose “joint liability” on Starlink, the satellite internet service owned and operated by SpaceX, Musk's space company.
X's suspension in Brazil was originally ordered by the country's chief justice, Alexandre de Moraes, in late August and upheld by a panel of judges in early September. The court found that X, under Musk, had violated Brazilian law, which requires social media companies to employ a legal representative in the country and to remove hate speech and other content deemed harmful to democratic institutions. The court also found that X had failed to block accounts allegedly involved in doxxing federal officials.
X recently moved to servers hosted by Cloudflare and appeared to use dynamic IP addresses that constantly change, allowing many users in Brazil to access the site. In a previous configuration, the company had used static and specific IP addresses in Brazil, which were easier to block by Internet service providers under orders from regulators.
Musk, who owns X (formerly Twitter), has been slamming de Moraes for months and continued to do so after the executive order was issued, calling de Moraes a villain and comparing him to Darth Vader and Harry Potter character Voldemort. He has also repeatedly called for de Moraes' impeachment.
Brazil previously withdrew money for fines it had imposed on X from X and Starlink's accounts at financial institutions in the country. The new fines will be due starting September 19, with the court calculating the total amount based on “the number of days of non-compliance” with its previous orders to shut down X nationwide.
While Musk presents himself as an advocate of absolute freedom of expression, X has given in to requests to delete profiles and posts in countries such as India, Turkey and Hungary.
Musk and X may also be in the process of complying with Brazil's blocking orders. Brazilian newspaper Correio Braziliense reported Wednesday that X has begun blocking accounts in accordance with blocking orders from the country's Supreme Court.
Among the accounts apparently blocked were those of several internet influencers who are reportedly under investigation for spreading false information and calling for attacks on democratic institutions in Brazil.
X said it has no plans to restore access to Brazilian users.
“When X was shut down in Brazil, our infrastructure for delivering services to Latin America became inaccessible to our team,” a company spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday. “To continue to provide optimal service to our users, we switched network providers. This switch resulted in an unintended and temporary restoration of service to Brazilian users. While we expect the platform to become inaccessible again in Brazil soon, we continue to work with the Brazilian government to return service to the people of Brazil soon.”
Brazil's national telecommunications agency Anatel was ordered by de Moraes to prevent access to the platform by blocking Cloudflare. Fastly and EdgeUno servers and others that the court said were “created to circumvent” a ban on X in Brazil.
A Cloudflare spokesperson told CNBC that the company “neither enables nor prevents blocking,” adding that “many Cloudflare customers choose to use dedicated IPs, which is not unique in the industry.”
Before the ban, X had an estimated 22 million users in Brazil, according to Data Reportal.
REGARD: X is a financial “disaster”
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