Brazil Unblocks Musk’s X After Company Complies With Court Demands

Brazil’s highest court announced Tuesday that it would reinstate nationwide access to X after owner Elon Musk capitulated to its demands in a standoff over curbing misinformation on the site. Musk’s about-face comes after he spent the better part of five weeks bellyaching about what he called the Brazilian Supreme Court’s illegal censorship. Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes imposed the ban on Aug. 30, blocking an estimated user market of between 20 and 40 million people from accessing the platform. The court said Tuesday that X had complied with its orders to block certain accounts, appoint a legal representative in Brazil, and pay the equivalent of approximately $5 million in fines. Having met “all the requirements necessary for the immediate resumption of activities,” de Moraes said in a court statement, he’d ordered Brazil’s national telecommunications agency to lift the ban within 24 hours. In a statement on its Global Government Affairs account, X said it was “proud to return to Brazil,” and that the company would “continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate.”