Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X and satellite service Starlink, has been fined approximately Rs. 7.7 crore ($920,000) by a Brazilian court. This decision came after Brazilian users were able to access X for a short period, despite an existing ban on the platform.
According to reports, the unexpected access occurred when X updated its servers in Brazil, allowing users to log in momentarily before access was blocked again. The company claimed this was due to an unintended server switch.
On Thursday afternoon, X reverted to its original service provider, as noted by the ABRINT Internet Provider Association, Brazil's main trade group for internet service providers. ABRINT conducted tests that confirmed the change in service. They claimed that X had shifted to servers hosted by Cloudflare. ABRINT advisor Basílio Rodriguez Pérez suggested that the incident seemed deliberate, stating, “Everything that happened during the day led us to believe that it was on purpose.”
Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes described the incident as a "trick" to bypass the ban and imposed the hefty penalty on both X and Starlink for this violation.
This latest ruling adds to a history of Elon Musk’s companies challenging Brazilian court orders. The government had originally banned X in August of the previous year after repeated non-compliance with judicial decisions.
X, formerly known as Twitter, explained that the temporary access for some users on September 18 was a result of changing network providers, which inadvertently restored service for Brazilian users.
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