Prerana Toshniwal, Pune
The Supreme Court of Brazil announced that the ban on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, is being lifted. Justice Alexandre de Moraes approved the restart of X’s operations in the country once fines were settled and accounts linked to misinformation were frozen. As per a report, the website has settled fines amounting to 28 million reais ($5.1m; £3.8m) and agreed to appoint a local representative, as mandated by Brazilian legislation.
Moraes had banned Musk’s X because it had refused to remove multiple profiles that the government claimed were spreading false information about the 2022 Brazilian Presidential election.
Anatel, the telecommunications regulatory agency of Brazil, has been tasked with making sure that over 20 million users in the country have their services restored within 24 hours.
Following a period of disobeying the court’s instructions, Musk terminated the Brazilian employees of the company and shut down X’s Brazil office in late August. Musk stated that it was a tough choice to shut down X offices in Brazil. The billionaire entrepreneur, who considers himself a supporter of free speech without restrictions, criticized Justice Moraes’ decision to block numerous accounts as a misuse of authority and a breach of freedom of speech.
A few days after, Justice Moraes issued a nationwide block on the entire platform.
Numerous individuals began using platforms like Bluesky and the use of VPNs rose significantly in Brazil.
However, in September, the platform started to follow the court’s orders, showing a sudden change in direction.
X expressed its pride in coming back to Brazil on Tuesday.
“Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process,” the Government Affairs team wrote in their statement.
It seems that X has met all of the judge’s requirements for the ban to be lifted.
Brazil is one of the largest markets for the platform worldwide, and also its biggest in Latin America, with around 22 million users.
The conflict in Brazil was just one of several recent conflicts involving Musk against governments like Australia and the United Kingdom trying to stop the spread of online misinformation.