In Brazil, messaging app Telegram has been fined by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, for ignoring a previous court order he issued requiring the social ,media platform to suspend accounts belonging to supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro.
The previous court order was issued in January, following post-election protests which were similar to the January 6th Capitol riots in America, and which had resulted in acts of vandalism to government buildings. The order required the messaging app to suspend five different accounts which belonged to congressman-elect Nicholas Ferreira, as well as others, “to stop the spread of criminal manifestations.”
According to the most recent Supreme Court ruling, due to its non-compliance, Telegram must pay 100,000 Brazilian reals (about $20,000) per day in fines, which would result in a total fine imposed on the company of $236,527. The company was given five days to pay.
The ruling said, “The malicious non-compliance by the providers involved indicates, objectively, consent with the continued perpetration of the crimes under investigation.”
Telegram sent a letter to Morales which noted, no specific criminal content was cited in the order, and which requested the order be reconsidered.
The letter noted that Ferreira was an elected official, and that he had received the most votes of any candidate in 2020, with 1.47 million votes,, and that “No grounds or justifications were provided for the complete blocking of said channel, that is, the specific contents that would be considered illegal were not presented.”
The Court acknowledged that the platform had partially complied with the order, but had asked the court to clarify specific content it wanted removed from the platform.
This was not Morales’ first interaction with the messaging app. In March, the judge had ordered Telegram be suspended in the country and blocked by service providers to prevent access to it, as he claimed the app had repeatedly ignored judicial orders to suspend accounts which were spreading disinformation. The company complied with the requests and the suspension was lifted days later.
