BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the social media platform X owned by billionaire Elon Musk to pay a fine of 8.1 million reais ($1.42 million) for noncompliance with judicial orders, according to a ruling made public on Thursday.
The decision stems from a legal process last year in which the court ordered X to take down a profile it determined had spread misinformation as well as provide registration data for the user. Failure to comply triggered a daily fine of 100,000 reais and exposed the local legal representative of the social media giant to criminal liability.
The ruling from Moraes cited X’s noncompliance with the order to provide the user’s data, and demanded it immediately pay the fine.
X’s legal representatives in Brazil declined to comment.
In 2024, X was temporarily suspended in Latin America’s largest economy for over a month when it did not comply with court orders related to hate speech moderation in addition to failing to name a legal representative in the country as required by law.
($1 = 5.6979 reais)
(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia, Isabel Teles and Luciana Magalhaes in Sao Paulo; Editing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez and David Alire Garcia)
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