A federal court in the southeastern state of Espírito Santo ordered internet providers to suspend the messaging app Telegram in Brazil after the platform refused to hand over data belonging to members of a neo-Nazi channel. Phone companies and app stores will be notified later on Wednesday.
The decision comes as part of an investigation into an attack against two schools in the Espírito Santo municipality of Aracruz in November 2022, when a teenage shooter armed with a revolver and a semi-automatic pistol belonging to his father murdered four people and injured 13 others.
Investigators found that the killer interacted with the neo-Nazi channel under scrutiny, which is a vessel for spreading videos of violent deaths, tutorials for staging attacks or manufacturing homemade explosive devices, and Nazi propaganda.
Telegram handed over some of the data requested by the courts but not the phone numbers of the channel’s administrators. In addition to the suspension of services, the messaging company will also be fined BRL 1 million (USD 197,000) per day for noncompliance.
Justice Minister Flávio Dino endorsed the decision, saying it is part of a “pact for peace.” Mr. Dino has been the main face of the government’s push to regulate content moderation on social media — a drive first motivated by concerns over electoral disinformation but that gained new contours following the January 8 riots and recent spate of school attacks.
The government defends more stringent regulations on big tech companies, and argues that platforms must be held accountable for user-generated content that equates to hate speech.
“There are groups [on Telegram] called anti-Semitic front, or anti-Semitic movement … We know that this is fueling violence against our children,” the justice minister said on Wednesday.
This is not the first judicial setback faced by Telegram in Brazil. Last year, Brazil’s chief electoral justice, Alexandre de Moraes, ordered its suspension for not complying with local legislation (including the lack of a single legal representative in the country).
Before the ruling became effective, however, the tech company named a proxy in Brazil and avoided the ban.
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