Elon Musk’s internet service, Starlink, has announced that it will comply with a Brazil Supreme Court order to shut down X while vowing to pursue “all legal avenues” to allow the recently banned Musk-owned social media platform to operate in Brazil.
The move, announced by Starlink in a statement on Sept. 3, marks an apparent reversal after the country’s telecommunications regulator previously said that the satellite-based internet provider stated that it wouldn’t agree to block the social media platform.
Starlink said it would abide by an order from Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes requiring internet service providers and app stores to block X from their platforms.
“Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” Starlink’s statement said. “We continue to pursue all legal avenues, as are others who agree that @alexandre’s recent orders violate the Brazilian constitution.”
De Moraes froze Starlink’s accounts last week in order to pressure the company to cover fines imposed on X in Brazil, reasoning that both are part of the same Musk-controlled group.
In response to the asset freeze, Starlink said on Aug. 29 that it believes de Moraes’s decision violated due process and was unconstitutional.
“It was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil,” Starlink said in the statement. “We intend to address the matter legally.”
Starlink’s announcement that it will comply with the order to shut down X comes a day after a spokesperson from Brazil’s telecommunications regulator told The Epoch Times that the company had “informally” expressed to a top agency executive its intention to buck the X ban.
The spokesperson said that unless Starlink complies, it will face sanctions, including possibly having its operating license in Brazil revoked.
Arthur Coimbra, an Anatel board member, told The Associated Press that if Starlink refuses to abide by the order to block X, authorities could also eventually seize equipment from Starlink’s 23 ground stations in Brazil, where Starlink serves over a quarter million customers.
Starlink’s announcement that it intends to comply with the X ban marks the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between Brazilian officials and Musk, who has refused to comply with court orders to block accounts accused by investigators of spreading hate and misinformation. Both Musk and X’s global government affairs team have denounced these orders as unlawful attempts at censorship.
De Moraes’s order, which requires internet service providers and app stores to block access to X, also announced a daily penalty of $8,900 for users in Brazil who use a virtual private network to evade the ban. In his decision, de Moraes said X will remain blocked until it complies with his orders.
“Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” de Moraes wrote.
Musk, for his part, has been highly critical of de Moraes and his decision to block X in Brazil and related actions.
In his latest commentary on the matter, Musk shared a post in which billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman compares de Moraes’s actions to strong-arm tactics in communist-ruled China and warns that this puts Brazil on track to becoming an “uninvestable” market.
“Absolutely,” Musk wrote in his post, agreeing with Ackman’s assessment of the X ban, which the hedge fund manager said was “illegal.”
From The Epoch Times