Brazil:
Elon Musk’s X Company has paid a multimillion-dollar fine in Brazil to settle a dispute with a judge who banned the platform over disinformation in Brazil’s largest Latin American market.
However, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who ordered X’s closure in August, said on Friday (October 4) that the platform had transferred the funds to the wrong account.
X, formerly known as Twitter, was fined $5.2 million for failing to comply with a series of court orders.
Moraes said the social network had paid the full amount, but confirmed that it had done so in a different account than the one listed in the court order, and ordered the funds to be transferred immediately.
On August 31, Moraes announced that Mr. Blocked.
X, which had 22 million users in Brazil before Moraes blocked it, hopes that paying the fine will resolve the dispute.
The court announced last week that it had complied with the court’s other requests, including the appointment of a legal representative in Brazil.
The clash between Mr. Musk and Mr. Moraes turned into a high-stakes battle that drew attention around the world as a test of both freedom of expression and the fight against disinformation.
Furious, Musk slammed Moraes over the ban, calling him an “evil dictator” and naming him “Voldemort” after the villain in the “Harry Potter” series.
However, in recent days he has become noticeably more silent on the matter, and it appears that X is keen to do whatever it takes to have the ban lifted.
The platform briefly resumed service in Brazil in mid-September after a technical workaround it said was “inadvertent.”
But it was taken offline again after Moraes threatened to impose further fines.
The battle between Company X and Mr. Moraes began when Mr. Moraes ordered the company to disable the accounts of supporters of ousted far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro during Brazil’s 2022 presidential election.
After Bolsonaro’s leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office in January 2023, the conflict escalated further following an attack on the federal building in Brasilia by Bolsonaro’s supporters. .
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
