Elon Musk’s satellite broadband company Starlink said on Tuesday it would comply with a Brazilian Supreme Court order to block access to social media platform X in the country, after notifying the country’s regulator a day earlier that it would not comply with the order.
Starlink It has emerged as a new battlefield mask And in Brazil, Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered the freezing of Musk’s company X’s accounts in order to potentially use them to pay fines to the company.
“Despite the illegal treatment of Starlink by freezing its assets, we are complying with the order to block access. X “In Brazil,” Starlink, which has more than 200,000 customers in the Latin American country, said in X’s post.
Brazil’s telecoms regulator Anatel said on Monday it had been informed by Starlink that the Musk-backed company would not comply with President Moraes’ order ordering all internet providers to block domestic access to X.
But an Anatel representative told Reuters that Starlink had reversed course and told regulators on Tuesday it would end the blockages within hours.
Anatel confirmed that Starlink has already started blocking access to X in Brazil.
Social media platform X has been blocked in Brazil since last week after President Moraes ordered all Brazilian telecommunications operators to block it because he did not have legal representation in the country, a decision that was later upheld by a panel of Supreme Court judges.
Starlink said in a post that it had filed suit in Brazil’s Supreme Court, arguing that Moraes’ order was “grossly illegal,” and that the order froze Starlink’s finances and banned it from conducting any financial transactions in Brazil.
The group added that it would continue to pursue all legal options, as did others who agree with the judge’s “recent order violates the Brazilian Constitution.”
Starlink missed the deadline to file a new appeal against the decision to freeze its accounts, court documents showed on Tuesday. It was not immediately clear what legal recourse the company would use to seek to have the freeze over lifted.
The controversy over X is rooted in an order issued by President Moraes earlier this year ordering platforms to block accounts linked to investigations into allegedly spreading distorted news and hate messages.
Musk closed his Brazilian office in mid-August after denouncing the order as censorship, though the platform remained available in the country until Moraes shut it down.
Some Brazilians can still access the service through VPNs and other methods.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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