Brazil lifts the ban on X, bringing an end to the dispute over false information

Brazil’s supreme court said it was lifting the ban on X, ‘I authorise the immediate return of activities’ of social media platforms said Judge Alexander de Moraes in his ruling. As x gave millions of dollars in fines for not complying with court orders.

This controversy pitted corporate accountability against freedom of speech and was widely followed throughout the globe.

What was the conflict?

The conflict started when Justice Alexander de Moraes of Brazil’s Supreme Court disagreed with Musk’s social media platform X. The judge charged X with failing to control content that purportedly encouraged violence and disseminated false information, especially in the wake of the riots linked to former president Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters. De Moares added musk and x to the “digital militias inquiry,” an ongoing investigation meant to counteract misinformation on the internet. Musk was charged by the judge with undermining legal attempts to control internet content and reactivating banned profiles without consent.

Furious, Musk compared Moraes to the “evil dictator” Voldemort from the Harry Potter movies and denounced him. In response, Moraes claimed that by permitting misinformation, the platform was weakening democracy.

Why was the ban lifted?

Brazilians are the most connected people on the globe, it is the biggest Latin American market on the platform it had around 22 million users before the ban.

The lengthy battle between X and Moraes intensified as it went on. Although midway through its suspension, X made a brief comeback in mid-September in Brazil following a technical hack that it dubbed “inadvertent.” But as Moraes threatened to apply more penalties for its noncompliance, it went back down.

X eventually complied with Moraes’s demands and paid a fine of $5.2 million. 

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