- By Ashish Singh
- Mon, 08 Apr 2024 12:42 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Elon Musk and Brazil's dispute intensified on Sunday after a Supreme Court justice sparked an investigation after Musk promised to restore access to social network accounts on X that the judge had ordered be disabled.
The owner of X, Elon Musk, has appealed a ruling by Justice Alexandre de Moraes directing the barring of specific accounts. Musk has described himself as an absolutist when it comes to free expression. He demanded that Moraes step down and declared that X, the company that was once known as Twitter, would remove any limitations since they were unconstitutional.
Authorities in Brazil, Musk, and X have not revealed specific social media accounts that were ordered to be blocked. It was unclear when the injunction was issued when X first posted on Saturday regarding the order to block.
Moraes is looking into "digital militias" that have been charged with disseminating hate speech and false information during the government of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and is in charge of the probe into Bolsonaro's purported attempt at a coup.
Musk accused Moraes of "brazenly and repeatedly" undermining the Brazilian people and constitution in an X post on Saturday night.
"This judge has applied massive fines, threatened to arrest our employees and cut off access to X in Brazil," he wrote in the post.
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"We will therefore most likely lose all of our revenue in Brazil and be forced to close our office there. However, values are more important than money." The billionaire has promised to fight the decision banning X accounts in court if at all feasible.
In response, Moraes on Sunday opened an investigation into what he called an obstruction of justice and included Musk in the probe he is conducting into fake news on social media.
In his ruling, Moraes stated: "X shall refrain from disobeying any court order already issued, including performing any profile reactivation that has been blocked by this Supreme Court."
The judge said in a statement made available to the media that X would be penalised 100,000 reais ($19,740) each day if the business disobeys the order to block specific accounts.
The socialist administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared support for Moraes, with Solicitor General Jorge Messias denouncing Musk and advocating for social media network regulation to stop international platforms from breaking Brazilian laws.
"We cannot live in a world where foreign-domiciled billionaires dominate social media and place themselves in a position to flout the law, disobeying court decisions, and endangering our authorities," Messias wrote on X.
A campaign opposing a planned internet control measure was spearheaded by officials at Alphabet's Google and the social messaging site Telegram, for which Moraes also ordered a probe last year.
Instead of leaving it up to the courts, the measure places the burden of finding and reporting illegal information on internet businesses, search engines, and social messaging platforms. If this wasn't done, there would be heavy fines.
(With Agency Inputs)