Rio Racket

Pay up, they said:

The demand comes roughly one month after de Moraes, an “anti-fake news” crusader, banned access to the X platform in Brazil after it initially refused to comply with censorship orders against a group of users as well as appoint a new legal representative in the country. After initially loudly condemning the Brazilian government’s demands, X announced that it would comply with Brazilian court-mandated censorship and reinstated Rachel de Oliveira Villa as its legal representative in Brazil. Twitter reportedly submitted a formal request to de Moraes to allow for its reinstatement in Brazil following compliance with the censorship orders and other court-mandated requirements. De Moraes, in a ruling issued on Friday, confirmed that X has complied with all the censorship orders issued by the court and appointed a legal representative in the country as requested by the Brazilian top court. He, nonetheless, conditioned the reinstatement of the platform in the country to the payment of the new $1.8 million fine. The fine, according to the ruling, was imposed in response to the platform’s “failure to comply, for two days” with the ban in mid-September. On that date, users were reportedly able to access the X platform from within Brazilian territory. X described the incident as “inadvertent and temporary” and attributed it to a switch in network providers in Latin America.

Extortion is expensive...