The Brazilian supreme court has ordered that X be suspended in the country after the social media platform failed to meet a deadline to appoint a legal representative in the country.
Late on Friday afternoon, Justice Alexandre de Moraes – who has been engaged in a dispute with X’s owner, Elon Musk, since April – ordered the “immediate, complete and total suspension of X’s operations” in the country, “until all court orders … are complied with, fines are duly paid, and a new legal representative for the company is appointed in the country”.
He gave Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency 24 hours to enforce the decision. Once notified, the agency must pass the order on to the more than 20,000 broadband internet providers in the country, each of which must block X.
Difficult to know how wholly effective that’s gonna be really.
The decision imposes a daily fine of R$50,000 (£6,800) on individuals and companies that attempt to continue using X via VPN.
Oh Aye?
Musk has said that despite the ban, his company will continue to provide Starlink – which is, apparently, providing vital internet coverage for much of the country – absolutely free of charge. That’s a good move – get the genuine moral high ground, and use vast wealth to hire the best lawyers.
This is an important test of free speech, and Starmer will be watching this very closely.
Users with a good VPN will still be able to access X. By ‘good’ I mean a paid service, not one of the many freebie services.
It is not clear how exactly such users can be traced since the whole point of VPN is to make their internet connexion untraceable, by having servers scattered around the World and keeping no records of the traffic they handle, and headquartering in jurisdictions beyond the reach of security agents of even ‘free’ democracies.
In-frame “quotes” from Xitter appear in many website I use, without any action on my part. If somebody in Bazil is idling browing British Caving Forum or Japan Steam Forum, are they going to be fined when somebody on the other side of the globe quotes a Xitter post?
Over on Bluesky their servers have been hit by the biggest load (>1000 events/second) they’ve ever seen as loads of Brazilians signed up.
Difficult to know how wholly effective that’s gonna be really.
I don’t know what Brazil’s internet links are like (a quick look suggests ~14 cables landing at 4 points), but it shouldn’t require all 20,000 ISPs to block X, it just needs the connection points to the outside world to blackhole X’s internet addresses. Of course, Starlink won’t do that.
@John B
Users with a good VPN will still be able to access X
The VPN hides their traffic. What they submit will be there in plain sight so will potentially incur that R$50,000 fine.
Is the title of this post a reference to our one time Danish King, or a mere typo?
@ JohnB
If they use a “Paid For” VPN the means of payment will be one way of going after them. If the judge can lean on ISP’s he can just as easily lean on the banks to block any new transactions, and reveal customers who’ve already paid for service in advance. And (knowing how socialists operate) trying to send cash or money orders by post could be stopped by compliant union members in the postal service. NEVER underestimate the level of evil these people are capable of – just ask the Canadian Truckers….
If you know anything about Brasil you’ll know how successful this going to be. Avoiding obeying the law is what Brasilians do. They’ll just regard it as an interesting challenge. Although Brasilians are not natural Twatts. They have social lives.
AndyF,
The VPN will encrypt the request, apart from X doing the same.
It’ll just be noise.
Dave Ward,
So they’re going to block Brazilians logging on to a VPN for other purposes like commerce? I used to have a personal VPN on Microsoft Azure. Are Brazilian courts going to try and shut down payments to Microsoft?
The article also asks ‘Why give Musk more economic power when he repeatedly abuses it and demonstrates contempt for the public good?’
I’d argue that Musks’ SpaceX is of a higher quality than the alternatives. Evidently the US agrees with me. They’re leaving two astronauts in the International Space Station until they can get a ride down with SpaceX.
@jgh,
Presumably enemies of the regime will be exposed to the maximum possible penalties, on the flimsiest of, or indeed entirely fabricated, evidence, while the leaders could stand in the chief prosecutor’s office, with TV cameras rolling, openly using X without sanction.
That’s how these things usually work.
@Western Bloke
It’s irrelevant that the VPN will be encrypt the request. What they write will be visible on X so can be used as evidence against them.
I suspect what andyf means is that what you post on Twatter is posted on Twatter, and the authorities can use that as evidence.
Ha!
I suspect what andyf means is that what you post on Twatter is posted on Twatter, and the authorities can use that as evidence.
Good luck getting Musk to give up the identities of anonymous accounts.
That said, Brazil is getting very close with Chine so no doubt they’ll be called in to build a Brazil version of The Great Firewall of China.
– Is the title of this post a reference to our one time Danish King, or a mere typo?
The title is brilliance.
The whole shebang sounds rather scarily like the Third Reich banning its citizens from listening to the BBC and othe feindsender.
But there’s definitely no conspiracy, and Brazil and France are definitely not doing the bidding of the State Department and the CIA.
Meanwhile here at the southern tip of Africa, our ***GLORIOUS LEADERS*** have blocked Starlink subscriptions until such time as the necessary bribes have been paid. A local subsidiary must be established and 51% ownership must be gifted to the Chosen. This I have to say is a lot cleverer than the Chinese and Brazilian blockades.
@ Southerner
Good that the wogs are better off now under the ANC than they were under NP and apartheid. Blocking Starlink to grease the palms of the nomenklatura must add to the wealth of the average black citizen. No wonder they are so happy to vote for the same old shite (see the UK for another example).
The authorities in Brasil will get overwhelmed when loads of people on Twitter update their bios to say they are Brazilian and live in Brasil in a “I am Spartacus” move.