X to Pay $1.9M More to Remove Brazil Ban

If it is willing to pay an additional fine, X (formerly known as Twitter) may resume operations in Brazil shortly

Reuters and other publications have reported on an order from the country’s Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, which decrees that the social network owned by Elon Musk may “immediately resume its activities in national territory” if it pays a fine of 10 million reais (approximately $1.9 million).

This is in addition to the 18.3 million reais ($3.4 million) that X had already been fined. Brazil froze the accounts of Starlink, the satellite internet company owned by Musk and X, to pay the fine.

However, Moraes has stated that Starlink must abandon its appeal against the payments to continue.

X has been embroiled in a legal dispute with Moraes for most of this year regarding his efforts to deactivate specific accounts that he claimed were disseminating election misinformation.

(Musk has stated that Moraes “should resign or be impeached.”) Ultimately, the corporation was prohibited from operating in Brazil and ceased operations at the end of August.

The ban resulted in a significant increase in the prominence of competing services, such as Bluesky.

However, X has recently appeared to change its stance, as evidenced by its agreement to block the designated accounts, pay the necessary penalties, and appoint a legal representative in Brazil.

Moraes is instructing the company to pay this supplementary fine after X appeared to circumvent the ban earlier this month and resume service in the country. This was reportedly a “coincidence” caused by X’s transition to Cloudflare infrastructure.

The Global Government Affairs account of X appeared to concede its surrender in a post on Thursday, stating, “We acknowledge and respect the sovereignty of the countries in which we operate.”

The account also asserted that providing access to Brazilian users is “essential to a thriving democracy.”