On October 7, the Brazilian Supreme Court officially lifted the ban on social network X (formerly Twitter). This social network was blocked in Brazil for more than a month due to the issue of misinformation.
Judge Alexandre de Moraes ruled that the platform could resume operations immediately after X paid millions of dollars in fines for failing to comply with court orders.
The conflict between Brazil and X erupted during the 2022 Brazilian election, when a lot of misinformation spread on social network X. Judge Moraes ordered the platform to be blocked on August 31, 2023, after X refused to remove the accounts of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro and did not appoint new legal representatives in Brazil.
Elon Musk publicly criticized Judge Moraes and compared him to the villain Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. However, Judge Moraes and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that misinformation must be addressed to protect democracy.
After the tension, X finally complied with all the court's requests and paid a fine of $5.2 million to have the ban lifted.
Brazil was X's largest market in Latin America, with 22 million users before the platform was blocked.
During the time X was banned, many people, including President Lula, moved to other platforms such as Threads or Bluesky.
