Top Brazil Court Upholds Ban of X

Elon Musk’s X is under assault in Brazil.

Last week, the billionaire owner was told that he needed to hire new legal representation within the country before a mandated deadline.

Musk never met the requirement, so X has been banned in Brazil, a decision that was upheld by the country’s highest court.

Gotta Go

This is a bit of a feud that got started about five months ago when Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered a slew of accounts to be suspended by X for allegedly spreading disinformation.

Musk was not about to let someone dictate to him who should be banned, so the feud started.

Most of the five-member panel of the country’s Supreme Court ruled with Justice de Moraes, but not everyone seemed to agree.

Justice Flávio Dino argued that "freedom of expression is closely linked to a duty of responsibility.

"The first can't exist without the second, and vice-versa.”

His sentiment echoed that of Musk, who, after the ban was ordered, stated, "Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes."

Apple and Google, among other companies, now have five days to remove X from their respective app stores as well as being required to block the use of X on iOS and Android platforms in Brazil.

Anyone found using X after the ban will be fined R$50,000 ($8,910; £6,780).

Musk has already closed its Brazil office, claiming that one of its representatives had been threatened with arrest if he did not comply with the requested censorship of the accounts.

X is very popular in Brazil. In fact, it is reportedly one of the largest markets for X, so this will clearly impact the financials of the company, but Musk has stated many times that free speech rules over profit for X.

Now that Brazilians can no longer use X, they are flocking to a platform called Bluesky.

According to Bluesky, the platform has already received 500,000 new user registrations over a two-day period, and the numbers are still rolling in.

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber was delighted that X is being censored, posting, "Good job Brazil, you made the right choice."

Yes, it is always great to benefit from censorship, so, I guess we can assume that the government can manipulate Bluesky and is just another state-run form of media.