Brazilian Supreme Court has asked internet service providers in the country to take X offline as the company denied hiring a new legal representative and taking down posts.
A long-embroiled legal war between the Brazilian Supreme Court and X has led to Justice Alexandre de Moraes demanding the firm be blocked in the country. X was accused of not curbing misinformation on its platform in a bid to uphold free speech. Moreover, the firm was asked to appoint a legal representative in the country, which it denied. The judge found that enough to ban the platform until it does so.
“Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes will order X to be shut down in Brazil – simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents,” an official X account stated. “The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that.” X also claimed that Judge Moraes threatened its previous legal representative with imprisonment, forcing her to quit. Apparently, he still had her bank accounts frozen.
“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy, and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes,” Musk retorted. The owner of the social media platform had to shut X’s offices down in Brazil last week due to threats of arrests.
X Offline in Brazil Since Saturday
Users in the country have reported that they have been unable to access the platform since Saturday as internet service providers are mandated to block it. Any user or business using the platform through VPNs can expect fines of up to 50,000 reais ($8,900) daily.
With the ban, the crypto community in Brazil will find it hard to engage—X is where a lot of crypto-related interaction occurs. Nevertheless, other platforms exist that can house them until X’s legal issues in Brazil get resolved, if they do. BlueSky, a platform created by Jack Dorsey, X’s co-founder when it was launched with the name Twitter, has seen an uptick in users as X went offline in Brazil. A BlueSky developer mentioned, “We’ve never seen traffic like this.”
Source: https://www.livebitcoinnews.com/brazilian-court-bans-x-in-the-country/