Brazilian court sentences X to a fine

Elon Musk's short messaging platform X has been fined 8.1 million reais, around 1.35 million euros, by the Brazilian Supreme Court, Reuters reported on Thursday. X was accused of failing to comply with court orders in a court case from 2024 regarding profile deletion and user data transfer on X.

The decision by Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes is based on a court case from 2024, in which the court ordered the deletion of an X user's profile due to the alleged dissemination of false information. In addition to shutting down the account in question, X was also ordered to send the user's registration data to the court. However, X did not want to comply with this.

The judge therefore imposed a fine of 100,000 reais per day if X did not comply with the court's decision. In addition, X's local legal representative was threatened with criminal prosecution.

In the current ruling, De Moraes has now determined that X has still not transferred the user data. The court is therefore ordering X to pay the fine imposed immediately. X has not yet commented on the ruling.

Legal dispute and X blocking

In 2024, X had refused to take action against hate speech on the platform, among other things. The Brazilian Supreme Court had temporarily blocked the platform for around a month after the orders were refused and no local legal representative of the company had been appointed. The block was lifted after a legal representative was appointed and a fine of the equivalent of 4.7 million euros was paid.

The court was only able to enforce the payment at the time through pressure. The judge threatened X CEO Elon Musk with the confiscation of frozen assets from X and his satellite internet communications company Starlink in Brazil. With Starlink, Musk had initially tried to circumvent the blocking of X in Brazil.

(olb)