Moraes fines Telegram for not blocking channel of conservative congressman Nikolas Ferreira

Justice Alexandre de Moraes of Brazil’s STF (Federal Supreme Court) fined Telegram on Wednesday (Jan. 25) R$1.2 million (US$230,000) for not blocking the account of federal deputy-elect Nikolas Ferreira (PL, conservative).

Here is the full text of the decision.

The penalty was applied due to partial noncompliance with the decision that ordered the blocking of 5 channels.

Two accounts of the influencer Bruno Aiub, known as Monark; one of the teacher Paula Marisa; and the profile called “Patriots” were taken off the air.

On Wednesday, Telegram requested the censorship czar Moraes to reconsider the blocking of Nikolas Ferreira’s account.

The platform requested that the suspension be aimed only at the publications considered illicit by the Justice instead of blocking the entire account.

Moraes orders the legal representative of the platform in Brazil, lawyer Alan Campos Elias Thomas, to pay the fine within 5 days.

The magistrate had ordered the suspension of the accounts on Jan. 11, with a deadline of 2 hours for Telegram to comply with the order from access to the decision.

The Justice cites that Telegram expressed knowledge of the measure on Jan. 13, and that 12 days have passed since then, “and the million-dollar sanction is enforceable”.

“The present measure does not configure any prior censorship, forbidden constitutionally even because there is no prohibition of the investigated to manifest themselves in social networks or outside them, as several continue to do, not infrequently repeating the same criminal conducts,” says Moraes in his decision.

“The blockades of the social network accounts determined in these proceedings, therefore, are based on the need to stop the continued dissemination of criminal manifestations,” says Brazil’s censorship czar.

In March 2022, when Moraes suspended the operation of Telegram in Brazil, the magistrate also imposed a fine on the social network. At the time, the platform had also not removed from the air user accounts even after the court order.