Elon Musk’s X and Starlink face daily fines of up to $1 million in Brazil for allegedly circumventing the law. Brazil’s Supreme Court has set the fine at up to 5 million reals, or $920,000 a day. Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, remains liable.
In late August, Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered X suspended in Brazil. The court found that X violated the country’s laws, which require social media companies to hire a local legal representative and remove hate speech and other content deemed harmful to democratic institutions. The court also found that X failed to suspend accounts that allegedly exposed the personal information of federal officers.
X recently switched to Cloudflare servers and appears to use constantly changing dynamic IP addresses to allow more users in Brazil to access the service. Previously, Musk’s company used static, specific IP addresses in Brazil, which were easily blocked by internet service providers on the orders of regulators.
Musk has repeatedly attacked Judge de Moraes, likening him to a number of villains.
The new fines will begin on September 19. The court calculated the total fine based on X’s “days of non-compliance” with previous suspensions.
X said it had no intention of restoring access to Brazilian users. The restoration of service in Brazil was “accidental” after the company changed network providers.
Judge de Moraes ordered the national telecommunications agency Anatel to block Cloudflare, Fastly, and EdgeUno servers, which the court said were created to circumvent the ban.
Before the suspension, X had about 22 million users in Brazil, according to Data Reportal.