Social network X has been allowed to resume operations in Brazil after complying with court orders by owner Elon Musk, Brazilian media reported on Tuesday.
Judge Alexandre de Moraes said in his ruling, after X paid millions of dollars in fines for failing to comply with a series of court orders:
“I authorise the immediate resumption of operations’ of the social platform.”
He gave Brazil’s communications regulator 24 hours to make the platform formerly known as Twitter available again to millions of Brazilian users. US entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk has not yet reacted in any way to the ruling.
Moraes has been in a standoff with the world’s richest man, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” for months over a flood of misinformation online related to Brazil’s 2022 election campaign.
On August 17, X announced that it was closing its Brazilian office due to threats to employees. The company claimed it had obtained a secret order from Brazilian judge Moraes, who threatened the representative office’s legal counsel with arrest if he did not comply with an order to block certain accounts.
On August 28, Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered Musk to appoint a new legal representative of the eponymous company in the country within 24 hours, threatening to suspend its operations otherwise.
On August 29, Moraes ordered to block the accounts of Starlink Holding, a company owned by Musk, in Brazil. The entrepreneur called this decision illegal.
On August 30, Moraes ordered to suspend the work of the social network X in the country, and also imposed a fine for using X with the help of VPN.
