SAO PAULO (AP) - Brazil began blocking Elon Musk's social media platform X early Saturday, rendering the platform largely inaccessible both via the web and its mobile app, after the company refused to comply with a judge's order.
X missed a deadline imposed by Chief Justice Alexandre de Moraes to appoint a legal representative in Brazil, leading to the suspension. It marks an escalation in a months-long feud between Musk and de Moraes over free speech, far-right accounts and disinformation.
In order to block X, Brazilian telecommunications regulator Anatel has ordered internet providers to suspend users' access to the social media platform. Major operators began doing so at midnight local time on Saturday.
De Moraes warned Musk on Wednesday night that X could be blocked in Brazil if he did not comply with his order to appoint a representative, setting a 24-hour deadline. The company has not had a representative in the country since earlier this month.
"Elon Musk showed his total contempt for Brazilian sovereignty and in particular for its judiciary, positioning himself as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of any country," de Moraes wrote in his decision on Friday.
The judge said the platform will remain suspended until it complies with his orders and also imposed a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using VPNs to access the platform.
In a later ruling, he reversed his original decision to set a five-day deadline for internet service providers themselves - and not just the telecoms regulator - to block access to X, as well as his directive for app stores to remove virtual private networks, or VPNs.
The dispute also led to the freezing of the Brazilian bank accounts of Musk's satellite internet provider Starlink this week.
Brazil is one of the biggest markets for X, which has struggled with a loss of advertisers since Musk bought the former Twitter in 2022. About 40 million Brazilians, roughly a fifth of the population, visit X at least once a month, according to market research firm Emarketer.
"This is a sad day for X users around the world, especially those in Brazil, who don't have access to our platform. I wish it hadn't come to this - it breaks my heart," X CEO Linda Yaccarino said Friday night, adding that Brazil is failing to fulfill its constitutional promise to prohibit censorship.
X had posted on its official Global Government Affairs page late Thursday night that it expected X to be shut down by De Moraes, "simply for not complying with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents."
"When we tried to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian lawyer with jail time. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts," the company wrote.
X is in conflict with De Moraes because the party does not want to comply with the order to block users.
Accounts the platform has previously shut down on Brazilian orders include lawmakers tied to former President Jair Bolsonaro's right-wing party and activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy. X's lawyers filed a document with the Supreme Court in April saying it had suspended or blocked 226 users since 2019.
In his decision Friday, De Moraes cited Musk's statements as evidence that X's conduct "is clearly intended to continue to encourage messages of extremism, hate speech and anti-democratic discourse, and to attempt to remove them from the jurisdiction."
In April, De Moraes named Musk as a target in an ongoing investigation into the spread of fake news and opened a separate investigation into the executive for alleged obstruction of business conduct.
Musk, a self-described "free speech absolutist," has repeatedly claimed that the judge's actions amount to censorship, and his argument has been echoed by Brazil's political right. He has frequently insulted Moraes on his platform, characterizing him as a dictator and tyrant.
De Moraes's defenders have said his actions against X were lawful, supported by most of the full court, and served to protect democracy at a time when it is in danger. He wrote Friday that his ruling is based on Brazilian law that requires internet service companies to have a presence in the country so they can be notified when relevant judicial decisions are made and take appropriate action - including removing illegal content posted by users and an expected flood of misinformation during municipal elections in October.
The threat of lockdown is not new in Brazil.
Lone Brazilian judges shut down Meta's WhatsApp, the country's most used messaging app, multiple times in 2015 and 2016 after the company refused to comply with police requests for user data. In 2022, de Moraes threatened messaging app Telegram with a nationwide shutdown after it repeatedly ignored requests from Brazilian authorities to block profiles and provide information. He ordered Telegram to appoint a local representative; the company eventually complied and remained online.
X and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in several countries - mostly authoritarian regimes like Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela, and Turkmenistan. Other countries, including Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X in the past, usually to quell dissent and unrest. Twitter was banned in Egypt following the Arab Spring uprisings, which some called the "Twitter Revolution," but has since been reinstated.
A search on X on Friday showed hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that might allow them to continue using the platform by pretending to log in from outside the country. It was not immediately clear how Brazilian authorities would police and impose fines that de Moraes mentioned.
"This is an unusual measure, but its main objective is to ensure that the court order to suspend the operation of the platform is actually effective," Filipe Medon, a specialist in digital law and professor at the law faculty of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Rio de Janeiro, told The Associated Press.
Mariana de Souza Alves Lima, better known by her moniker MariMoon, showed her 1.4 million followers on X where she's headed. She posted a screenshot from rival social network BlueSky.
On Thursday evening, Starlink reported on X that De Moraes had frozen her finances this week, preventing any transactions from being carried out in the country where the bank has more than 250,000 customers.
"This order is based on an unsubstantiated finding that Starlink should be responsible for the fines imposed on X, unconstitutionally. It was issued in secret and without providing Starlink with any of the legal procedures guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution. We intend to pursue the matter judicially," Starlink said in its statement. The law firm representing Starlink told the AP that the company has appealed, but declined to comment further.
Musk responded to people who shared the news about the freeze, adding insult to injury to De Moraes. "This guy @Alexandre is a criminal of the worst kind, posing as a judge," he wrote.
Musk later posted on X that SpaceX, which operates Starlink, will provide free internet service in Brazil "until the matter is resolved," as "we cannot receive payment, but do not want to leave anyone out."
In his decision, De Moraes indicated that he had ordered the freezing of Starlink's assets because X did not have enough money in his accounts to pay the mounting fines. He reasoned that the two companies are part of the same economic group.
While X's suspension followed warnings and fines and was therefore justified, taking action against Starlink "seems very questionable," said Luca Belli, coordinator of the Getulio Vargas Foundation's Technology and Society Center.
"Yes, of course, they have the same owner, Elon Musk, but it is discretionary to consider Starlink as part of the same economic group as Twitter (X). They have no connection, they have no integration," Belli said.
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AP writers Barbara Ortutay reported from San Francisco and David Biller from Rio. Savarese contributed from Sao Paulo.