First STF panel votes to maintain suspension of “X” in Brazil

The trial to confirm Minister Alexandre de Moraes' decision on the suspension of the “X” takes place this Monday (2), by the First Panel of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), in the virtual plenary of the STF, where the ministers will have until 11:59 pm to register their votes.

In addition to Alexandre de Moraes, ministers Luiz Fux, Cármen Lúcia, Flávio Dino and Cristiano Zanin participated in the vote.

Understand the case

Billionaire Elon Musk has been disregarding orders from Minister Alexandre de Moraes since April this year, after being asked to block accounts that presented an affront to democracy and that were being investigated by the STF.

Furthermore, the owner of the social network was not paying the fines for failing to comply with court orders, which today total R$18.35 million, and made satires directed at the Brazilian minister on his own “X” account. The “joke” ended up being included in the investigation into digital militias, of which Moraes is the rapporteur.

The suspension will only end when Musk pays the fine of R$18.35 million, complies with the legal orders imposed by the minister and appoints a representative in the country.

Embed from Getty Images

_{Alexandre de Morais and Elon Musk (Reproduction/Bloomberg/Chesnot/NurPhoto/ Getty Images Embed)}

It is important to note that the “X” office in Brazil was closed on August 17, following allegations that Moraes had threatened to arrest Brazil’s then representative.

An article published this Sunday (1) in The New York Times stated that Brazil is the fifth country that most uses “X”, behind only Japan, India, Indonesia and the United Kingdom.

Research in other countries

In an interview, the minister stated that “the criminal use of various social networks, especially the 'X' network, has also been investigated in other countries.”

Attorney General Paulo Gonet agrees with Alexandre's decision to suspend the social network and also recalled that billionaire Elon Musk has been complying with orders to remove content from his platform in countries such as India and Turkey.

User migration

“X” users are looking for other platforms to express their opinions and thoughts. The social networks Threads and Bluesky are the most popular at the moment. Created by the former founder of Twitter, Bluesky has already received 500 thousand users in the last two days.

Featured photo: Social Network “X” in Brazil (Reproduction/NurPhoto/Getty Images Embed)