TECH NEWS – It seems that Musk is not very happy about Twitter being banned in Brazil, which is still an important market in South America.
The New York Times has reported that the owner of Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX has waved the white flag at Alexandre de Moraes, the Brazilian Supreme Court judge whom Musk has previously called “Brazil’s Darth Vader”. The judge’s ruling banned Twitter at the end of August because Musk had not acted in accordance with the ruling. The controversy began when Musk reinstated several Brazilian right-wing accounts that had previously been banned. In 2022, Lula da Silva defeated former President Jair Bolsonaro in the elections, and Moraes has been monitoring events in the meantime, asking social media companies to ban accounts that spread violence and false information, as Bolsonaro’s supporters were trying to overturn the election results.
Musk, on the other hand, objected on the grounds of freedom of speech, which he said did not apply to Twitter users in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. But in August, things began to move: Musk fired the Brazilian employees and refused to pay the fines imposed by the Brazilian government. But on August 28, Moraes gave an ultimatum: Twitter must get new legal representation or the site will be blocked in the country. Musk did nothing, and poof, 20 million Twitter users in the country lost access! But now Musk seems to have changed his mind. Twitter got new legal representation in Brazil, banned the offending accounts, and the Brazilian Supreme Court confirmed it, albeit by saying that Twitter had not filed the proper paperwork to restore the site. Moraes gave Musk’s team five days to do so.
Brazil’s Darth Vader!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2024
When X was shut down in Brazil, our infrastructure to provide service to Latin America was no longer accessible to our team. To continue providing optimal service to our users, we changed network providers. This change resulted in an inadvertent and temporary service restoration…
— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) September 19, 2024
But Musk played a trick on September 18, when Twitter suddenly became available again, but the company said it was involuntary, and Brazilian telecom watchdog Anatel said it was a deliberate act by Twitter to ignore the Supreme Court ruling. In response, Moraes decided to fine Musk $1 million for each day of violation, and by the weekend, the banhammer of prohibition had struck again.
The only question now is whether the Muskies can file the right paperwork. Twitter has been making money under the new ownership so far, and who knows if Twitter will be back on track in Brazil, if users will return to it from BlueSky or Threads…
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