X Must pay All Fines in Brazil.
Brasilia, Sep 27 (EFE). –
Brazil’s Supreme Court on Friday upheld the blocking of X, saying that Elon Musk’s company still has unpaid fines and must provide a series of clarifications before it can resume operations, official sources reported.
X has been blocked in Brazil since August 31 by order of Judge Alexandre de Moraes as part of a wide-ranging investigation into the spread of fake news and hate crimes online.
De Moraes denied on Friday a request filed the previous day by X’s legal representatives in Brazil asking him to reinstate the platform because they had complied with all of the court’s requests.
However, the judge said X must still pay a fine of 10 million reais (1.85 million dollars) and provide additional information on whether it will drop a series of appeals it filed.
That fine refers to the penalty imposed after X’s alleged maneuver that allowed it to resume operations a few days in September, after executing an update to the application that made it more difficult to block.
“The immediate resumption of its activities depends solely on full compliance with Brazilian law and absolute respect for the judiciary’s decisions, with due respect for national sovereignty,” De Moraes said in Friday’s ruling.
The judge suspended X, which has some 20 million active users in Brazil after Musk refused to remove several suspicious profiles allegedly dedicated to spreading misinformation and hatred.
The profiles reportedly belong to far-right bloggers and activists who systematically attack democratic institutions by spreading fake news, with the intention of creating “an environment of total impunity and a “lawless country,” according to the Supreme Court.
Musk refused to remove the profiles, closed the X office in Brazil, removed the company’s legal representatives, and refused to pay the fines.
The owner of Tesla and Space X also waged a fierce campaign against De Moraes, repeatedly calling him a “dictator” and even accusing him of “violating” the Brazilian Constitution.
The court froze X’s bank accounts, along with those of Starlink, another of Musk’s companies.
On Sep. 13, the court ordered the transfer of 18.3 million reais (3.3 million dollars) from the frozen accounts of X and Starlink to the Brazilian state as “full payment” of the fines imposed, which it then reinstated after the money was deposited.
However, Musk has gradually accepted all the decisions of the Brazilian Supreme Court. EFE cms/mcd
