Elon Musk’s company Starlink refused on Sunday to comply with orders to suspend the service of the social network X, also owned by the South African, in Brazil.
The information was confirmed by the president of the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel, the regulatory body), Carlos Baigorri, the entity responsible for notifying the more than 20 thousand operators in Brazil of the order to suspend the social network X (formerly Twitter) in the South American country, reported the news portal G1.
The accounts of Starlink, a satellite internet services company with more than 215,000 active lines in Brazil, were blocked by Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes, to guarantee the payment of fines imposed on X.
The judge had ordered X to remove a series of profiles linked to the far-right led by former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is being investigated in other cases for having planned a coup against the country’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Musk refused to do so, accusing Alexandre de Moraes of acting without apparent reason.
In mid-August, the South African tycoon closed X’s offices in Brazil to “protect employees”, who he said had been threatened with arrest by the judge.
Without a legal representative for X in Brazil, the judge ordered the blocking of Starlink’s accounts, as it is also owned by Musk, as a way of guaranteeing the payment of the fines imposed on X.
According to the president of Anatel, Starlink’s refusal has already been notified to the magistrate.
Since the early hours of Saturday morning, customers of the country’s main operators began reporting the blocking of the social network or access problems.
According to the Anatel director, on Sunday, most operators had already blocked access to Musk’s social network.
Source: rr.sapo.pt
