Elon Musk’s satellite broadband company said Tuesday it was complying with an order from Brazil’s highest court to block access to its social media platform X in the country, a day after it informed Brazil’s regulator it would not comply.
Starlink has become a new battleground between Musk and Brazil after top district judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered the company’s accounts to be frozen so that they can be used to pay fines owed by X, which is also owned by Musk.
“Regardless of Starlink’s unlawful treatment in terms of freezing our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” Starlink, which has more than 200,000 customers in the Latin American country, said in a post on X.
On Monday, Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel said it had received information from Starlink that the Musk-backed company would not comply with Moraes’ order for all internet providers to block domestic access to the X network.
However, an Anatel representative told Reuters that Starlink had backtracked on its stance and informed the regulator on Tuesday that it would end the blocking within hours.
Anatel has verified that Starlink has already started blocking access to X in Brazil.
Portal X has been blocked in Brazil since last week, after Moraes ordered all of the country’s telecommunications providers to shut down the social media platform due to its lack of legal representation in the country. That decision was later upheld by a panel of Supreme Court judges.
In its post, Starlink said it had initiated legal proceedings in the Brazilian Supreme Court to explain the “blatant illegality” of Moraes’ order, which froze Starlink’s finances and prevented it from conducting financial transactions in Brazil.
He added that he will continue to pursue all available legal remedies, as do others who agree that “the judge’s recent orders violate the Brazilian constitution.”
Starlink has missed the deadline to file a new appeal against the decision to freeze the accounts, according to court documents released Tuesday. It is also unclear what legal instrument the company will use to seek an overturn of the freeze.
The dispute over X has its roots in an order by Moraes earlier this year that required the platform to block accounts implicated in investigations into the alleged dissemination of distorted messages and hate content.
Musk denounced the order as censorship. In response, he closed the company’s offices in Brazil in mid-August, but the platform remained available in the country until Moraes shut it down.
Some Brazilians can still access the service via VPN and other methods.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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