Thought Leadership
Elon Musk’s satellite internet company Starlink announced on Tuesday that it is complying with the Brazilian Supreme Court’s decision to block access to the social media platform X in the country.
This came one day after the company informed the Brazilian regulatory authority that it did not intend to comply with the decision.
The Supreme Court under Judge Alexandre de Moraes had frozen Starlink’s accounts in order to be able to settle possible fines from X, which also belongs to Musk.
“Despite the illegal treatment and the blocking of our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” Starlink, which has over 200,000 customers in Latin America, wrote on X. On Monday, the Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel had declared that Starlink would not comply with the order.
However, a representative of Anatel told Reuters on Tuesday that Starlink had backtracked and was now blocking access to X. The authority confirmed that the process had already begun.
X suspended in Brazil since last week
X has been blocked in Brazil since last week after Judge Moraes ordered all telecommunications providers to shut down the platform as X had no legal representative in the country. This decision was later confirmed by a panel of the Supreme Court.
Starlink announced in its post that it had taken legal action to challenge the “gross illegality” of the ruling that froze the company’s accounts. At the same time, it is still trying to exhaust all legal means, as the judge’s recent orders would violate the Brazilian constitution.
Starlink missed the deadline to lodge a new appeal against the account blocking, according to a court document from Tuesday. It is unclear what further legal steps the company will take.
Dispute over accusations of censorship
The conflict over X began earlier this year when Judge Moraes ordered certain accounts suspected of spreading fake news and hate messages to be blocked. Musk criticized this as censorship and closed X’s offices in Brazil in mid-August, but the platform remained accessible – until the most recent blocking by Moraes.
Some users in Brazil are currently still circumventing the block by using VPNs and other means.
