Brazil's Supreme Court lifts ban on social media site X

INA-  sources

Brazil's Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it was lifting a ban on X, after the social media site owned by billionaire Elon Musk had been blocked in its biggest Latin American market for over a month amid a row over disinformation.

"I authorize the immediate return of the activities" of the social platform, Judge Alexandre de Moraes said in his ruling, after X settled millions of dollars in fines for breaching court orders relating to the fight against misinformation.

In late August, Moraes ordered that X be suspended after Musk refused to name a legal representative in Brazil.

Moraes and Musk had been feuding for months over allegations X engaged in obstruction, criminal organization and incitement, namely over allegations that X was supporting a network of people known as digital militias who allegedly spread defamatory fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices. 

The row, which pitted freedom of expression against corporate responsibility, was closely watched worldwide. A furious Musk lashed out at Moraes by calling him an "evil dictator" and dubbing him "Voldemort" after the villain from the "Harry Potter" series.
Moraes gave Brazil's communications regulator 24 hours to make the platform accessible again to its millions of Brazilian users.
"X is proud to return to Brazil," the platform wrote on its Global Government Affairs handle. "Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process. We will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate."

Musk had yet to react to the decision.

Market research group Emarketer says some 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, access X at least once per month.  

On Aug. 31, tensions came to a head when Moraes dramatically blocked X for failing to deactivate the accounts of dozens of supporters of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and to name a new legal representative in Brazil.  

X eventually complied with all of Moraes's demands in order to have the suspension lifted. Last week, the judge confirmed that the company had also settled around $5.2 million in fines.

Many Brazilians, including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, migrated to other platforms such as Threads or Bluesky, the social media network created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

But neither has come close to attracting the kind of audience enjoyed by X.

X's fight with Moraes began during the October 2022 election, in which Bolsonaro failed to win a second term.

It escalated following attacks by Bolsonaro supporters on federal buildings in Brasilia after Lula's inauguration in January 2023.

The destruction by supporters of Bolsonaro, dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics," drew comparisons with the Jan. 6 Capitol attacks by supporters of former President Donald Trump.

Halfway through its suspension, X briefly made a return in Brazil in mid-September, after a technical workaround which it claimed was "inadvertent."

But it went back offline again after Moraes threatened it with more fines for non-compliance.