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Brazil’s Supreme Court is facing a backlash over its decision to ban Elon Musk’s X and fine users who access the social media platform using virtual private networks, amid rising concerns that the top court has gone too far in its fight against fake news and misinformation online.
On Saturday, regulators blocked access to X across Latin America’s largest nation following an order by Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who also ruled that users who accessed the site using VPNs would face daily fines of around $8,000.
The orders came after X refused to comply with a deadline to appoint a legal representative for the company in Brazil — a requirement under the country’s civil code. The company had earlier last month closed its office in Brazil, one of its biggest markets, amid an escalating feud between Musk and Moraes.
Musk has repeatedly and publicly criticised the judge over what he sees as censorship requests to remove or suspend accounts, which appear to be linked to far-right individuals and groups. Moraes, meanwhile, has framed his decisions as an effort to protect Brazilian democracy.
His decision on Friday to ban the platform, however, has divided opinion, with some seeing it as autocratic and an attack on free speech, but others calling it an important statement of national sovereignty in the face of the adversarial Musk.
“I am against what happened. I think it is very bad for Brazil when you mix the judiciary, in such an imperative way, with the day-to-day running of companies,” said Luciano Huck, a prominent TV personality and public commentator, in a public event after the ban was announced on Friday.
More contentious still has been Moraes’s decision to fine users who access X using methods such as VPNs.
Rightwing politicians and some experts have decried the order as legally dubious and overly punitive, given the vast majority of the Brazil’s 20mn X users use the platform in a non-contentious manner.
“The application of a daily fine to individuals and legal entities in a broad and generalised manner represents a serious affront to the fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution,” said a note from the Brazilian Bar Association to the Supreme Court, published on Saturday, asking the tribunal to review the ruling.
“The imposition of fines constitutes a sanction and, therefore, must always be supported by a legal process that guarantees the individual the right to a full defence,” the body said.
Posting on X with a VPN soon after the ban was implemented, Marcel van Hattem, a federal lawmaker with the rightwing Novo party, called Moraes a “tyrant” and said his ruling was “illegal”.
“My dignity is worth much more than [the fine]. I will keep tweeting regardless of state persecution or threats because I believe in freedom of expression, democracy and real justice,” he said on Saturday.
Luca Belli, a professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation law school in Rio de Janeiro, said the application of fines “sounds disproportional but there is a logic behind it.”
“The problem is [Moraes] fears that if anyone could use a VPN, you would have thousands of Elon Musk fanboys using them to brag that the ban on X is useless,” Belli told the Financial Times, adding that the judge had backed down from an earlier order to completely ban the download of VPNs from Google and Apple stores.
A decision by Moraes to freeze the accounts of Starlink, Musk’s satellite network, has also been met with concern. The supreme court declined to comment on the order, but local press have reported it was done in an attempt to collect fines levied on X.
Arthur Lira, the powerful speaker of the lower house of Congress, said at an event on Saturday the move “causes us apprehension.”
“This is not [just] my concern, but that of investors and many people who do business in Brazil. It is a concern regarding legal uncertainty,” he said.
Bill Ackman, a prominent US hedge fund manager, said on the platform: “Brazil’s illegal shutdown of X and account freeze at Starlink put Brazil on a rapid path to becoming an uninvestable market.”
A poll by Genial/Quaest in May found that 56 per cent of Brazilians felt that Moraes was “exceeding the limits”. Some 27 per cent disagreed with the statement.
While offering rhetorical support to Moraes, the broader supreme court bench appears to be aware of the controversy surrounding the judge and his recent decisions.
In an interview with local media on Sunday, court president Luís Roberto Barroso said that he believed that the court’s 5-year inquiry into the dissemination of fake news on social media would soon draw to a close.
Additional reporting by Tamires Vitorio in São Paulo
