RIO DE JANEIRO — A chamber of Brazil's Supreme Court has upheld a judge's decision to block billionaire Elon Musk's social media platform “X” nationwide, the court's website said.
The widespread support among the judges is a blow to Musk and his supporters, who have sought to portray Judge Alexandre de Moraes as a renegade and authoritarian censor of political speech.
The panel is made up of five of the 11 judges, including Judge De Moraes, who ordered the platform blocked last Friday for failing to appoint local legal representatives as required by law. According to his decision, X will remain blocked until it complies with his order and pays its outstanding fines, which as of last week totaled more than $3 million.
De Moraes also imposed a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) on any person or company that uses a virtual private network (VPN) to access X. Some legal experts have questioned the rationale for the decision and how it will be enforced, and Brazil's Bar Association has said it will ask the Supreme Court to review the provision.
But at Monday's hearing, the majority of judges upheld both the blocks and VPN fines, with one judge voting against the latter, unless users could be shown to be committing a crime by using X.
Brazil is one of X's largest markets, with tens of millions of users, and the block has brought dramatic changes. Months of escalating conflict Musk and de Moraes have been at odds over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.
