(fix typo in second paragraph)
Written by Ricardo Brito and Luciana Magalhaes
BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel said on Monday it could impose sanctions on Starlink, the satellite internet provider controlled by Elon Musk, for failing to comply with the country’s rules and possibly revoke its license to operate in the country.
The Brazilian Communications Commission is inspecting all Brazilian telecom companies to ensure they have blocked the X messaging platform as ordered by a Supreme Court judge, Arthur Coimbra, commissioner of the agency, told Reuters.
Coimbra said in an interview that Starlink was the only company that informed Anatel that it would not comply with the ruling issued by Judge Alexandre de Moraes.
Earlier, a Supreme Court panel voted unanimously to uphold the suspension of social media giant X in the country for defying a court order, blocking access to more than 20 million users.
Last week, Moraes issued a ruling to stop X in Brazil because it had not appointed a local legal representative as required by law and an earlier court order that set a deadline for compliance.
Judges Flavio Dino, Cristiano Zanin, Carmen Lucia and Luiz Fox sided with Judge Alexandre de Moraes. Three of the judges on the panel said the suspension could be lifted if the platform complied with previous rulings.
The X app was removed in Brazil in the early hours of Saturday morning following Moraes’ decision. Brazil is the sixth-largest market for the X app globally with around 21.5 million users as of April, according to Statista.
Moraes and XE owner Elon Musk have been locked in a months-long feud after the social media platform defied orders to block accounts that investigators accused of spreading misinformation and hate.
Musk alleged that Moraes sought to censor users and closed X’s Brazil office in August without appointing a new representative, leading to the suspension of operations.
On Monday, Musk responded, “Exactly,” to a post that called the comment an attack on Brazilians’ freedom of expression and rights.
Judge Dino sided with Moraes, writing: “It is not possible for a company to operate on the territory of a state and intend to impose its view on what rules should be valid or applicable.”
However, Dino, Zanin and Fox indicated that they would be open to reconsidering the decision if X complies with the court’s rulings.
Supreme Court President Luis Roberto Barroso, who was not on the review committee, said removing legal representatives to avoid complying with court decisions was “behavior that would not be acceptable anywhere in the world.”
The X app remained unavailable to most users in Brazil.
Starlink said it was refusing to remove X from its service until its Brazilian bank accounts were unfrozen. Last week, Moraes froze Starlink’s accounts after X failed to pay fines for failing to deliver documents.
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