Brazil’s X ban comes into force after a judge’s order

• Judge Moraes issues the ruling as Musk fails to comply with the order.
• Musk calls Moraes an “evil dictator playing judge.”
• Moraes threatens $8,900 fine for using VPN to access X.
  

BRASILIA: A block on Elon Musk’s X social network in Brazil took effect early Saturday after a Supreme Court judge ordered his suspension, according to AFP.

Brazil’s Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes on Friday ordered the platform suspended after a months-long standoff with the tech billionaire over misinformation in South America’s largest country.

Moraes issued the ruling after Musk failed to comply with an order to appoint a new legal representative for the company.

Early Saturday access to X, formerly known as Twitter, was no longer possible for some users in the South American country who were shown a message asking them to reload their browser without being able to successfully log in.

Musk, who also owns Tesla and SpaceX, reacted angrily to the judge’s order, calling Moraes an “evil dictator playing judge” and accusing him of “trying to destroy democracy in Brazil.”

“Freedom of speech is the foundation of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” the billionaire, who has increasingly aligned himself with right-wing politics, wrote on X.

The two have been locked in an ongoing, high-profile feud for months as Moraes leads a fight against disinformation in Brazil.

Musk has previously declared himself “absolutely free-speech,” but since taking over the platform formerly known as Twitter in 2022, he has been accused of turning it into a mouthpiece for right-wing conspiracy theories.

He is a staunch supporter of former US President Donald Trump’s bid to regain the White House.

Moraes ordered the “immediate, complete and total suspension of X” in the country, telling the national communications agency to take “all necessary measures” to implement the order within 24 hours.

He threatened an $8,900 fine to anyone who used “technological subversions” to bypass the block, such as a VPN.

The judge also ordered Google, Apple and Internet providers to “introduce technological barriers capable of preventing the use of the X application” and access to the website — though he later withdrew the order.

The social networking platform has more than 22 million users in Brazil.

Musk shut down X’s business operations in Brazil earlier this month, claiming Moraes had threatened the company’s previous legal representative with arrest to force him to comply with “censorship orders.”

On Wednesday, Moraes told Musk he had 24 hours to find a new spokesperson or face suspension.

Shortly after the deadline, X said in a statement that he expected Moraes to shut it down “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”