Twitter may soon be able to continue operating in Brazil if it pays a larger fine. This information comes from a judge in Brazil’s Supreme Court, Alexandre de Moraes, who ordered Twitter to pay an additional 10 million reais (around $1.9 million) to resume its services in the country.
This is not the first fine Twitter has received. Earlier, it was fined 18.3 million reais (around $3.4 million) for not following the laws in Brazil. To get back online, Twitter’s parent company, X, needs to drop its appeal against the payments.
X had been in a legal battle with Moraes over some accounts that he thought were spreading misinformation about the election. X shut down its operations in Brazil and was banned from the country in August. Many other social media services, like Bluesky, became popular as a result.
Recently, X agreed to block the problematic accounts and pay the fines. It also agreed to appoint a lawyer in Brazil. Moraes has asked the company to pay this additional fine because X resumed its services in Brazil earlier this month. X claims it was an accident and that it was using a different internet company, Cloudflare.
In a post, X’s global affairs account acknowledged its agreement to respect the laws of the countries it operates in. It also said that giving Brazilians access to its services is important for democracy to thrive.
