Brazil’s Supreme Court lifted its ban after X paid a fine of $5.1 million and blocked accounts that were accused of violating the law.

After a one-month suspension, X has now returned to Brazil. X had been suspended in Brazil since late August following a dispute with the Supreme Court of the country, where X refused to comply with a court order that ordered the removal of certain right-wing content and accounts. The Court claimed the content violated Brazilian laws. Elon Musk appears to have caved after weeks of refusing to comply.

The Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre approved X’s return following the blocking of profiles accused by the company of spreading false information, reappointing a local legal representative, and paying fines totaling R$28.6m ($5.1m).

X released a statement about its platform saying that it was “proud” to be returning to Brazil. “Giving tens and millions of Brazilians the opportunity to access our indispensable platform throughout this whole process has been paramount,” read the statement. We will continue to protect freedom of expression, within the limits of the law in all our operations.

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Nina Santos is a researcher on the Brazilian extreme right and specializes in digital democracy. “And, also, the Brazilian people were just beginning to not care.”

Musk’s company, which had previously been Twitter, received a consent order from a Brazilian court in October 2022. The decree threatened a ban on the company if they didn’t adhere to their commitments regarding election-related disinformation and misinformation during Brazil’s presidential runoffs. Employees who spoke with WIRED in the past said that the trust and security staff convinced Musk to maintain Twitter’s policies. Musk fired more than half of the staff, including most of the trust and safety team, less than two weeks after that.

Musk’s “freedom of speech absolutism”, also referred to the fact that the company reinstated previously banned accounts. The company also rolled back its moderation policies, allowing misinformation and hate speeches to spread on the platform.

De Moraes issued an order in April to the company ordering it to remove a selected group of accounts, and certain content, that the court claims spreads disinformation regarding the country’s Electoral System. In 2023, when former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro was defeated in the elections, his supporters stormed Brazil’s legislature.

Musk refused to comply with the court order and removed the content. X announced on August 19 that it was closing its offices in Brazil. This meant it no longer had a representative in the country. Moraes, who was not designated as the official company representative to the Brazilian government and be legally accountable for its decisions, issued an order suspending the platform. He also targeted Musk’s Starlink company, saying that it was a part of the “economic group”, and fined the company $2 million after Musk originally said Starlink wouldn’t block X.

Musk finally relented and Starlink obeyed the court order. Meanwhile, X dodged the block in Brazil briefly by routing traffic through Cloudfare–which the company said was “inadvertent”–though that avenue, too, was quickly shut down. The company announced last week that it had appointed a representative in Brazil and was preparing the paperwork for re-opening. After X had paid a reported fine of $5 million imposed by courts, the company was allowed to resume its operations. The timing is crucial as Brazil will be holding several important local election in October.

Ivar Hartmann is an associate professor of Law at the Insper Institute of Education and Research, in Sao Paulo. The Supreme Court can now block Starlink accounts in the future if X behaves badly again.

Hartmann, however, says he does not see any further problems as long as Musk’s company continues to follow the law and has a legal representative. Musk, at least, is not affected. The odds that [the legal representative] will have an arrest warrant at some point are not zero. He says it is possible. “I hope they are getting paid well.”

Santos believes that Starlink will at least be protected if X continues to violate court orders, pointing out that the company offers internet access to many Brazilians in rural areas. Santos says that it’s easier to live in Brazil without X rather than Starlink.