The Twitter, now renamed as, X, social network is no longer accessible in South America's largest country Brazil, after the nation's Supreme Court ordered the social network to be blocked. Furthermore, anyone attempting to access Twitter-X using an encrypted virtual private network (VPN) faces a fine of NZ$14,300 a day.
Brazil's highest legal instance ordered the shutdown of the social network after Twitter-X ignored another order earlier this year to block accounts involved in dis and misinformation and hate investigations.
After Twitter-X refused to name a legal representative in Brazil to respond to the court, the social network was ordered to be blocked in the country.
On top of that, the accounts of Musk's SpaceX which operates the low-earth orbit satellite broadband network Starlink have been blocked in Brazil. As Starlink has defiantly told Brazil that it won't block Twitter-X on its network, the South American country's telco regulator Anatel said it could revoke the satellite broadband operator's licence.
It is believed Starlink has around 200,000 customers in Brazil.
Musk reacted badly to the news that his social network is now blocked in Brazil, and that Starlink could lose its licence in the country. He called the Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes a "dictator", compared him to Voldemort in the Harry Potter books, and launched what Musk called "a daily data dump" on the Brazilian jurist and politician on Twitter-X.
Musk also threatened to apply for Brazilian government property to be seized in retaliation for the orders against Twitter-X and SpaceX.
Unless the Brazilian government returns the illegally seized property of đť•Ź and SpaceX, we will seek reciprocal seizure of government assets too.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 2, 2024
Hope Lula enjoys flying commercial. https://t.co/ghZc11B4Hl
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the current president of Brazil. In contrast, Musk has expressed support for the former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who last year was barred from standing for political office in the country for eight years, having been found guilty of abusing his powers and misuse of media.
In 2022, Bolsonaro presented Musk with Brazil's Order of Merit honour, which is one of several that his administration bestowed on the former president himself, and many other recipients that year.
Musk is seeking to frame the cause célèbre as freedom of speech issue, while calling for de Moraes to be impeached and imprisoned for alleged crimes.
How the very public brawl ends is anyone's guess, but Brazil has shown that it is not afraid to take on tech giants.
This week, Reuters reported that Brazil's finance ministry intends to propose a 15% tax on multinational corporations, in case there is a revenue shortfall next year.
The plans align with discussions Brazil, the current G20 forum chair of the world's largest economies, has had with other nations around global tax cooperation.
Update The free speech absolutist commenters' cognitive dissonance is quite a strange phenomenon. There's nothing to suggest that the freedom to post hate speech and support of authoritarianism, and anti-democratic movements and activities equates to being anti-authoritarian and democratic. Quite the opposite.
It's also worth noting that under Musk, Twitter has caved into authoritarian regimes in the vast majority of cases and censored users.
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