Elon Musk’s Starlink agreed to block X in Brazil Tuesday, just one day after the broadband satellite company announced it would defy the order from the Brazilian Supreme Court.
In a statement Tuesday, Starlink blasted the Supreme Court’s ruling that blocked access to X in Brazil, but the company said it would follow the order anyway.
“Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing of our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” Starlink said in a Monday post on X.
Starlink went on to say it will pursue all legal avenues to overturn the court’s ruling blocking the social media platform. In the same post, Starlink said it had already started court proceedings to overturn the Brazilian Supreme Court’s ruling from last week.
The court officially banned X on Monday, restricting access to millions of users. In the aftermath of the ruling, Mr. Musk, who owns X, called the ruling illegal and promised to keep the platform’s access open to Starlink customers. The company has more than 250,000 customers in Brazil.
By bypassing the X ban, Starlink violated the Supreme Court’s ruling, which led to Brazilian authorities freezing the company’s assets.
With Starlink out of the picture, X will go mostly dark in Brazil. While some Brazilians can access the site through a virtual private network, the Supreme Court’s ruling says anyone caught using one could be subject to a $9,000 fine.
Brazil’s feud with X began in April when Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Mr. Musk to block the X accounts accused of spreading what the justice called hate and misinformation. While X initially said it would cooperate, Mr. Musk backed out and called Justice de Moraes a tyrant online.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.