In the latest round of the dispute between Elon Musk and Brazil’s top court, a senior judge has accused X of a “willful, illegal and persistent” effort to circumvent a court-ordered block – and imposed a fine of R$5m ($921,676) for each day the social network remains online.
The social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which has been banned by court order since 30 August, on Wednesday became accessible to many users in Brazil after an update that used cloud services offered by third parties, such as Cloudflare, Fastly and Edgeuno.
This allowed some Brazilian users to access X without the need for a VPN – which is also prohibited in the country.
Late on Wednesday, X described its reappearance in Brazil as an “inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users”.
But the influential supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes – who ordered the original ban as part of an attempt to crack down on anti-democratic, far-right voices – on Thursday described the move as a deliberate attempt “to circumvent the court’s blocking order”.
Internet censorship? Twitter was blocked for refusing to appoint a legal representative in Brazil, a legal requirement for any business that operates in the country above a certain size (and Twitter is very far from the threshold). Elmo claimed it was about censorship to make himself look good.
Why does Twitter need a legal representative? Precisely so that someone can answer for the sort of shit Elmo pulls on the regular. Or any other shit. Somebody needs to be accountable to the laws of a country if you’re doing business in that country. Otherwise you could sell Fentanyl online from overseas and the worse that would happen would be geting the product seized at the border after you’ve already been paid. This isn’t a radical concept and it has nothing to do with censorship.