X Gets Banned in Brazil After Musk Ignores Local Supreme Court Orders, VPN Users Threatened
Published on September 3, 2024
- Elon Musk’s decision to ignore Brazil’s Supreme Court orders to terminate several accounts led to the country's ban on social media platform.
- The refusal of X’s owner to comply prompted arrest threats, which triggered the closing of the company’s local office.
- People turning to VPNs to bypass the blockade were also threatened with thousands of dollars in daily fines.
The Elon Musk-owned social network X (formerly Twitter) has been blocked in Brazil due to the billionaire’s alleged non-compliance with multiple court orders to suspend certain accounts deemed in violation of Brazilian laws.
The local telecom agency is expected to enforce the blocking order on more than 20,000 broadband internet providers (ISPs) in 24 hours, leaving time over the weekend for each ISP to implement the changes.
The ruling by Alexandre de Moraes, a justice of Brazil's Supreme Court, mandated the country's National Telecommunications Agency to cut access to X due to the company's absence of a physical office in Brazil.
Musk closed X’s Brazilian office last week after threats of arrest emerged from Justice Moraes for non-compliance with directives to remove specific accounts. Describing the orders as illegal, Musk expressed intentions to make them public.
“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy, and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” he said. Musk also posted a meme suggesting people would turn to IP-changing services.
However, Justice Moraes declared that any individual in Brazil attempting to access X through a legitimate tool like a VPN would face daily fines of nearly $9,000.
Last month, nine General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) complaints filed by European privacy advocate NOYB (None of Your Business) stated that the social media giant unlawfully used the personal data from over 60 million users in the EU/EEA without notice or asking for their consent to train its AI technologies.
Meanwhile, a huge disinformation network suspected to originate from China operates on the X social media platform, using AI-controlled fake accounts that engage in leveraging legitimate content they rephrase to create political dissension, primarily focusing on the U.S. users at the moment, as the presidential election approaches.
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