Brazil’s Supreme Court is ordering ‘X’ to pay a fine of more than $5 million – including a new fine of almost $2 million – before the country ultimately lifts its ban on the platform.
‘X’ informed the Brazilian government earlier this week that they are now complying with court orders – as owner Elon Musk quietly slowed down his crusade against censorship, According to reports,
The South American nation threatened to ban the app on several accounts accused of promoting lies and hate speech. In addition to the fine, Musk also agreed to ban nine accounts.
Of the $5 million sought by the Brazilian government, $3.4 million is from a pending fine that was previously ordered and $1.8 million is a new fee due to the website Briefly becoming available to some Brazilians last week,
An update to the communications network on Wednesday September 18 allowed some of Brazil’s 21.5 million users to gain access to the platform for only a few hours. ‘X’ said the action was “inadvertent” and the service was immediately shut down.
A source close to X told Reuters the tech giant would likely pay all of the fine to settle the dispute.
To comply with the court’s initial orders, ‘X’ says it has banned nine accounts that were under investigation for hate speech or misinformation.
Musk – A self-proclaimed free speech warrior – Resisted the orders for almost five months until late August when ‘X’ was completely banned in the South American country.
His fight against the perceived threat to freedom of expression included a meme-campaign against Justice Alexandre de Moraes – whom Elon regularly mocked on ‘X’ in the weeks before and after the ban.
The same judge froze a bank account of Starlink owned by Musk, saying it was to pay the initial fine imposed against ‘X’. Due to this, Musk called the judge a “dictator”, which further escalated the dispute, which has now ended.
Starlink has filed an appeal against the decision to freeze its account – although the court is asking Musk to drop that appeal as part of the deal pending reinstatement of ‘X’.
Sources close to Musk believe the problem could be resolved within a few days and the platform’s sixth-largest user-base will regain access to the service.
