Brazilian telecommunications regulator Anatel could impose sanctions on Starlink, the satellite internet provider controlled by Elon Musk, for not complying with the country’s norms.
Owing to this the regulator may even revoke Starlink’s license to operate in the country, a senior official at the regulator said as per news agency Reuters.
Anatel commissioner Artur Coimbra said that the regulator is inspecting all Brazilian telecom operators to make sure they have shut down X messaging platform as ordered by a Supreme Court judge. Starlink is the only company that has told Anatel it will not comply with the ruling by Judge Alexandre de Moraes.
This comes after a Supreme Court panel voted unanimously to uphold the suspension of social media giant X in the country for defying a court order after which access was blocked to more than 20 million users.
The judge said that X should be suspended in Brazil because it did not name a local legal representative as required by law and a prior court order that set a deadline for compliance. After this, X was taken down in Brazil which is the company’s sixth-biggest market globally with about 21.5 million users as of April.
Starlink said it was refusing to remove X from its service until a freeze on its Brazilian bank accounts was lifted but the judge said that the company’s accounts will be frozen after X did not pay fines imposed for failing to turn over documents.