Brazil's Supreme Court Judge Reverses Telegram Ban, Key to Bolsonaro

The judge of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) in Brazil, who had ordered the suspension of the Telegram messaging application, reversed his decision on Sunday, after the company complied with all the judicial determinations that had led to the blockade.

“Considering that the court's orders were fully complied with, “I revoke the decision [published last Friday, ndlr] to completely and fully suspend the operation of Telegram in Brazil,” Judge Alexandre de Moraes wrote in a document released by the STF.

The suspension of this platform, which is key to the electoral strategy of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, was not implemented, so Telegram continued to function normally over the weekend.

Following the announcement of the suspension, Telegram founder Pavel Durov, of Russian origin, apologized to the supreme court, saying that the breaches that led to the blockade were due to a “communication problem” over misplaced e-mails, asking for more time to attend to court orders and avoid the blockade.

On Saturday, the judge granted an additional 24 hours for the company to comply with all requests, including appointing a legal representative in Brazil, suspending certain profiles and detailing before the courts what measures it takes to combat misinformation.

According to Moraes, the company reported taking various measures to combat misinformation, including “manual” surveillance of the 100 most popular channels in Brazil, the possibility of identifying channel-specific publications as imprecise, restricting profiles that disseminate disinformation and promoting information verified.

- Bolsonaro publication removed -

The judge also requested the removal of a Bolsonaro publication from August last year in which the president questioned, without evidence, the reliability of Brazil's electronic voting system, in force since 1996.

As early as Saturday, the publication was not available: “This message cannot be displayed” because “it violated local laws”, it said instead.

Bolsonaro, who has more than a million followers and numerous support groups on Telegram, had called the suspension “inadmissible” and said it threatened “the freedom” of Brazilians.

The president has been concentrating his membership in Telegram groups and channels for months, after seeing some of his posts on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook deleted due to false information.

Telegram, which is based in Dubai, is installed on 53% of Brazilian cell phones and is the fastest growing platform in the country, according to the Superior Electoral Court.

The application, which has been banned or restricted in several countries such as India and Russia, had long been in the sights of Brazilian judicial authorities, especially annoyed by the fact that the company did not have legal representation in Brazil and did not respond to their demands to avoid an avalanche of misinformation in the upcoming elections, such as the one that shook the 2018 election campaign.

Last year, the Brazilian electoral justice system unsuccessfully tried to meet with Telegram representatives to help the company fight misinformation ahead of the October presidential elections, as Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, Instagram, YouTube and Kwai pledged.

Unlike other applications, Telegram allows groups of up to 200,000 people, unlimited user channels and low content moderation, so the potential for any of them to go viral is endless.

In addition, it has secret chats and messages can be self-destructed.

mel/yow