Starlink has been in Brazil’s crosshairs since the blocking of Musk’s social media company X.
Elon Musk’s satellite-based Internet service providerStarlink backtracked and said on Tuesday that it would comply with a Brazilian Supreme Court justice’s order to block the billionaire’s social media platform, X.
Last week, Brazil’s supreme court ordered a nationwide banon the platform after it failed to appoint a legal representative, following an order by top judge Alexandre de Moraes. The ruling was upheld on Monday by a panel of federal Supreme Court judges.
De Moraes also ordered the freezing of Starlink’s assets last week for possible use to pay fines owed by X that already exceeded $3 million (€2.7 million), reasoning that the two companies are part of the same economic group.
Starlink filed an appeal, its law firm Veirano told the Associated Press on August 30 but has declined to comment further in the days since.
Previously, it informally told the telecommunications regulator that it would not comply until de Moraes reversed course.
“Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” the company statement said.
“We continue to pursue all legal avenues, as are others who agree that @alexandre’s recent order violates the Brazilian constitution”.
Had Starlink continued to disobey de Moraes by providing access, telecommunications regulator Anatel could eventually have seized equipment from Starlink’s 23 ground stations that ensure the quality of its internet service, Arthur Coimbra, an Anatel board member, said on a video call from his office in Brasilia.
Already some legal experts questioned de Moraes’ basis for freezing Starlink’s accounts, given that its parent company SpaceX has no integration with X. Musk noted on X that the two companies have different shareholder structures.
X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to block users — mostly far-right activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy and allies of former President Jair Bolsonaro — and has alleged that de Moraes wants an in-country legal representative so that Brazilian authorities can exert leverage over the company by having someone to arrest. And Musk has been relentlessly posting in recent days, lambasting de Moraes as a criminal.
“This evil tyrant is a disgrace to judges’ robes,” Musk wrote on X along with a photo of de Moraes some 17 hours before Starlink announced its decision to comply with the order.
Starlink’s presence in Brazil
The reversal comes as a relief to those in Brazil who have come to depend on Starlink.
The company has said it has more than 250,000 customers in the country, many of whom are in remote areas that wouldn’t have fast internet access otherwise.
Before Starlink, internet access in many of these areas came from slow, unstable fixed antennae. Its easy-to-install kits and high-quality connections have transformed communication in some communities, surpassing even major Amazonian cities in speed.
The Forest People Connection project, founded in 2022 with Musk-donated Starlink terminals, has so far brought them to 1,014 remote communities, including riverine and Indigenous peoples. The Yanomami are among them. Living in a far-flung corner of Brazil’s rainforest, they had faced a severe health crisis, but now have access to Starlink-powered telemedicine consults and reliable communication for emergency transport of patients.
Improved connectivity has also facilitated illegal activities, such as gold mining.
While Brazil’s massive territory with vast rural and forested areas makes it a key growth market for Starlink, its presence isn’t yet as large as Musk has led some to believe.
On Sunday, he shared someone else’s post that showed him meeting Bolsonaro in 2022 and noted that the duo claimed to have struck a partnership to bring Starlink to 19,000 schools. Musk touted the deal on X at the time.
It never happened. As of March 2023, SpaceX and the communications ministry hadn’t signed any contract, and only three terminals had been installed in Amazon schools for a 12-month trial period. The ministry’s press office didn’t immediately answer an AP request for updated information about these contracts on Tuesday. Brazil’s education ministry told the AP that states are responsible for signing contracts with internet service providers.
Since January 2022, when Starlink began operations in Brazil, it has captured a 0.5 per cent share of the internet market, trailing significantly behind leading providers, according to Anatel.
