All five judges on a Supreme Court panel voted to uphold a ban on X in Brazil. The move on Monday (September 2) backs the decision by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, one of the five judges, to shut down X in Brazil.
The ban, which went into effect on Saturday (September 31), was ordered by Justice Moraes after the company missed a court-imposed deadline to name a legal representative in the South American country, Al Jazeera reported on Monday.
“It is not possible for a company to operate in the territory of a country and intend to impose its vision on which rules should be valid or applied,” Justice Flavio Dino said as he joined Justice Cristiano Zanin in siding with Moraes.
He added: “A party that intentionally fails to comply with court decisions appears to consider itself above the rule of law. And so it can turn into an outlaw.”
Justices Carmen Lucia and Luiz Fux also backed Moraes, making the decision unanimous, Al Jazeera reported. However, some of the judges said that the suspension could be reversed if X complies with previous court rulings.
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Moraes’ original order, which was released on Friday (August 30), called Elon an “outlaw” who intended to “allow the massive spread of disinformation, hate speech and attacks on the democratic rule of law, violating the free choice of the electorate, by keeping voters away from real and accurate information.”
It reportedly ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X. The ban is now to remain in place until X complies with Moraes’ order and pays outstanding fines, which exceeded $ 3 million as of last week.
