The face of walking with his tail between his legs. (Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images)
If you let Elon Musk tell it, he’s a free speech absolutist who cannot be threatened with money or forced to submit to anyone’s whims. If you look at concrete actions, you’d see that Twitter has been far more acquiescent to government takedown requests. A counterpoint could be that he stood on principle and refused to appoint a legal representative to Brazil and pay a ~$5 million dollar fine even if it meant losing ~20M potential customers. Well, Twitter is currently in a position to recoup that audience, and you’ll never guess what happened. BBC has coverage:
Brazil’s Supreme Court has said it is lifting a ban on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
In his decision, Justice Alexandre de Moraes said that he authorised the “immediate return” of X’s activities in the country after it paid hefty fines and blocked accounts accused of spreading misinformation.
According to a statement, the site has paid fines totalling 28 million reais ($5.1m; £3.8m) and agreed to appoint a local representative, as required by Brazilian law.
All that grandstanding just to cave to the judge’s (quite reasonable) demands? He should have skipped the foreplay and just did what the court demanded last month! Since then, millions of Brazilians have migrated to other social media platforms like Threads and Bluesky. Will they abandon the internet community they’ve built up over the month to go back to the bird app? Only time will tell.
For those who do return, Welcome back to Twitter, Brazil! You have a lot of catching up to do!
Brazil Lifts Ban On Musk’s X After It Pays $5m Fine [BBC]
Earlier: Elon Musk Would Rather Have Twitter Shut Down Than Take The Smallest Amount Of Responsibility
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
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