Elon Musk's X goes offline again in Brazil after being fined for defying ban

Elon Musk's social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), went back offline in Brazil on Thursday, a day after it resumed service in the country, briefly defying a judicial ban imposed on the platform by the Brazilian Supreme Court last month.

Brazil's apex court, earlier in the day, ordered X to suspend access to the platform, after the company "unlawfully, persistently and intentionally" flouted judicial rulings as it resumed services on Wednesday following an automatic update in the phone app, AFP reported.

The court also said that the company's latest move, which was criticised by the Brazilian government as a deliberate violation of the suspension, would risk a daily fine of more than $900,000 for non-compliance.

Meanwhile, X said the return of its service was "inadvertent and temporary."

Abrint, Brazil's main trade association for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), said Thursday that the network went offline again "just before 4:00pm" local time, and was once again "blocked."

Judge Alexandre de Moraes in a court order Thursday called X "recalcitrant" and ordered the country's telecommunications agency Anatel to take the necessary measures to once again block access to the network.

The high-profile judge has been engaged in a long feud with South African-born tech billionaire Musk as part of his drive to crack down on disinformation in Brazil.

His suspension of X last month came after Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts accused of spreading fake news, and then failed to name a new legal representative in the country as ordered.

The suspension infuriated Musk and the far-right, and has fueled a fierce debate on freedom of expression and the limits of social networks, both inside and outside the country.

The social media platform had more than 22 million users in Brazil.

Moraes has also frozen the assets of X and Musk's satellite internet operator Starlink — operating in Brazil since 2022, especially in remote communities in the Amazon — to ensure payment of fines imposed on the social network for flouting court orders.

Last week, Moraes ordered the transfer of about $3 million from Musk's companies to pay fines incurred by X.

Musk has repeatedly hit out at Moraes in social media posts, calling him an "evil dictator" and dubbing him "Voldemort" after the villain from the "Harry Potter" series.

Internet providers explained that X became accessible again Wednesday after an automatic update to the phone application.

New software allowed the app to use constantly changing identifying internet protocol (IP) addresses via a service called Cloudflare, making it harder to block.

Abrint said Thursday that X had now stopped using Cloudflare.

While X said the restoration of service was unintentional, Anatel said the company had acted with "deliberate intention" to skirt the Supreme Court order.

Anatel said Thursday it had "identified a mechanism which, we hope" will block the service again.

When banning X, Moraes also ruled that those using "technological subterfuges" such as virtual private networks (VPNs) to access the blocked site could be fined up to $9,000.