Refusal to obey local laws suggests social media company ‘considered itself above the rule of law’, says judge

Members of Brazilian supreme court have unanimously voted to indorse the ban on X, after Musk’s refusal to comply with local laws led to the social networking site being blocked in one of its major markets. On Monday, five of the court’s justices were requested to consider Friday’s decision to temporarily ban X from Brazil, where the platform has over 21 million users. By lunchtime all five had unanimously voted in favour of the ban.

Voting in favour of X’s continued suspension, Flávio Dino said the company’s choice to “deliberately” ignore a court order to appoint a legal representative in Brazil suggested it “considered itself above the rule of law”. Such conduct risked turning X into an “outlaw”, Dino added, hinting that he could revisit his decision in the future if the company corrected its “illegal conduct”. “Economic power and the size of one’s bank account do not produce some strange immunity from jurisdiction,” Dino reasoned, warning of the risks of “private autocrats” being let to lay down the laws of social networks.

Judge Cristiano Zanin also wholeheartedly backed the ban, mentioning how the social media behemoth had “systematically” defied supreme court orders, first to block accounts that were allegedly spreading disinformation and then to appoint a local representative. “The repeated noncompliance with supreme court decisions is extremely serious for any citizen or legal entity, be they public or private. No one can seek to perform their activities in Brazil without complying with the laws and the federal constitution,” Zanin reasoned.

A third justice, Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha, stated that her support for the suspension is a result of X’s “aggressive and bellicose infringement of Brazilian legislation”. At stake was whether a foreign concern could be let to behave “however it wished, without rules or legal limits” in Brazil, Rocha added.

Earlier, justice Alexandre de Moraes – who originally ordered the ban – reiterated his view that the “immediate, complete and total” suspension of X across the nation was necessary. Zanin, Dino and Rocha all agreed with perhaps the most contentious portion of Moraes’s earlier ruling: the embargo on the use of “technological subterfuge” such as virtual private networks (VPNs) to sidestep the blocking of X. Using such technology to access X in Brazil is today punishable with a fine of 50,000 reais (£6,760) per day.

Musk has amplified his attacks on Brazil’s supreme court and leftwing government since Moraes’s ruling, which he has castigated as part of a woke authoritarian crusade to silence conservative voices and check free speech. On Sunday, Musk’s satellite internet subsidiary Starlink reportedly communicated to Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, Anatel, it would not conform to the court’s order to block X in the South American country. Simultaneously, Musk has used his X account to denigrate Moraes as a “fake judge”, “the dictator of Brazil” and “Brazil’s Voldemort”.