After Musk declared he would reinstate accounts on the social networking site X that the judge had ordered blocked, a Supreme Court judge started an investigation into the billionaire on Sunday, intensifying the stalemate between Elon Musk and Brazil.
The owner of X, Elon Musk, has appealed a ruling by Justice Alexandre de Moraes directing the barring of specific accounts. Musk has declared himself an absolutist when it comes to free expression. He has demanded that Moraes step down and declared that X, the company that was once known as Twitter, will remove all limitations since they were unconstitutional.
Authorities in Brazil, Musk, and X have not revealed that specific social media accounts were ordered to be blocked. It was unclear when the injunction was issued when X first posted it on Saturday regarding the order to block.
Moraes is overseeing an inquiry into an alleged coup attempt by former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and is looking into “digital militias” that have been accused of disseminating hate speech and fake news during his administration.
Musk accused Moraes of “brazenly and persistently” undermining the Brazilian people and constitution in an Online post on Saturday night.
In the post, he said that “this court has applied huge fines, threatened to jail our staff, and cut off access to X in Brazil.”
“We will therefore most likely have to close our office in Brazil and forfeit all of our earnings there. Nonetheless, values are more important than money.”
The billionaire has promised to fight the decision barring X accounts in court if at all feasible.
In response, Moraes opened an investigation into what he described as an obstruction of justice on Sunday and included Musk in the probe he is conducting into fake news on social media.
In his ruling, Moraes declared: “X shall not carry out any profile reactivation that this Supreme Court has barred, nor disregard any court order that has already been made.”
The judge said in a statement made available to the media that X will be fined 100,000 reais ($19,740) each day if it disobeys the order to block specific accounts.
The socialist administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared support for Moraes, with Attorney General Jorge Messias denouncing Musk and urging the regulation of social media networks to prevent foreign platforms from violating Brazilian laws.
“We cannot live in a society where social media is controlled by foreign billionaires who put themselves in a position to flout the law, disobey court decisions, and threaten our authorities,” Messias wrote in a post on X.
A campaign opposing a planned internet control measure was overseen by executives from Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google, and the social messaging network Telegram, for which Moraes also ordered an investigation last year.
The bill shifts the burden of finding and reporting illegal content from the courts to internet corporations, search engines, and social messaging platforms. In addition, it would levy steep penalty for noncompliance.
(Reuters)
