Brazil’s Supreme Court is ordering ‘X’ to pay just over $5 million in penalties – including a new nearly $2 million fine – before the country finally lifts their ban on the platform.
‘X’ informed the Brazilian government earlier this week that they were now in compliance with the courts orders – as owner Elon Musk quietly deescalated his crusade against what he deemed censorship, according to reports.
The South American nation threatened to ban the app over a number of accounts they accused of promoting lies and hate speech. Musk as agreed to ban nine accounts in addition to the fine.
Of the $5 million demanded by the Brazilian government – $3.4 million is from pending fines that were previously ordered and $1.8 million is a new charge due to the website briefly becoming available for some Brazilians last week.
An update to communications networks on Wednesday September 18th allowed some of Brazil’s 21.5 million users to regain access to the platform for just a few hours. ‘X’ said the action was “inadvertent” and service was quickly shut down.
A source close to ‘X’ told Reuters that the tech giant will likely pay all the fines in order to settle the dispute.
To comply with the court’s initial orders, ‘X’ says it banned nine accounts that were under investigation for hate speech or misinformation.
Musk – a self-styled free speech warrior – resisted the orders for nearly five months until late August when ‘X’ was fully banned in the South American country.
His fight against the perceived threat to free speech included a meme-campaign against Justice Alexandre de Moraes – who Elon regularly mocked on ‘X’ in the weeks leading up to and following the ban.
That same judge then froze one of Musk-owned Starlink’s bank accounts, saying it was to pay for the initial fines levied against ‘X’. This led to Musk calling the judge a “dictator” in an escalation of the feud which has now boiled over.
Starlink has filed an appeal to the decision to freeze their account – though the court is asking Musk to drop that appeal as part of the pending reinstatement of the ‘X’.
Sources close to Musk believe the issue could be solved within a matter of days and the platform’s sixth largest user-base would regain access to the service.
