Brazilian court takes strict action on X for violation of orders, fine for $1.4 million

Brazil's Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes released a major directive to social network website X (once Twitter) yesterday. Based on this, he ordered X to pay 8.1 million Brazilian reais (about 1.4 million US dollars) in fines. The fine was imposed when the site declined to provide registration information about the profile of Alan dos Santos despite a directive from the court.

De Moraes, in her July 2024 decision, ordered X and Meta to block, suspend, and share the account details of Santos. The company block, however, did not arise from the company having the same, because the company did not collect the same and the customer did not hold any technical connections to the Brazilian jurisdiction.

The judge, however, rejected this argument. Subsequently, X was fined 100,000 Brazilian reais (about US$17,500) per day through August 2024 for failing to provide the data. By October, the fine had risen to 8.1 million reais.

X had appealed the fine but later informed the court that it was willing to pay the fine. In Wednesday's ruling, the court ordered the company to pay the full amount immediately. However, it is unclear whether X provided the registration data as requested by the court.

Last year, de Moraes took another step against X when the company planned to lay off all its employees in Brazil. He then threatened to arrest X's legal representative in the country. According to Brazilian law, foreign companies have to appoint a local legal representative in the country, so that they can receive court decisions and take prompt action, such as deleting accounts.

It is worth noting that there has been a lot of controversy between social media owner Elon Musk and Judge de Moraes, a critic of former President Bolsonaro, regarding freedom of expression, right-wing accounts, and misinformation. Musk had called de Moraes an enemy and a criminal of freedom of expression. Despite this, de Moraes' decisions have been repeatedly upheld by his peers, including orders for nationwide shutdown and fines of X.