(LifeSiteNews) — A Brazilian judge has partially overturned a previous ruling that banned the popular messaging app Telegram from operating in the country. The platform has long served as a safe haven for supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who has over 1.2 million followers on the site.
The decision comes as Brazilian lawmakers are set to vote on a controversial bill sponsored by a Communist member of Congress and backed by socialist President Lula da Silva that would prohibit “fake news” from circulating on social media.
Telegram was outlawed on Wednesday, April 26 by a federal judge after the company failed to provide authorities with the data of a 16-year-old who carried out a school shooting in November 2022. The teen, government officials claimed at the time, had allegedly been using Telegram to share “neo-Nazi” information.
On Saturday, April 29, Judge Flávio Lucas reversed that decision, stating that ban was “not reasonable, given the broad impact throughout the national territory on the freedom of communication of thousands of people who are absolutely strangers to the facts under investigation.”
Although Lucas has allowed Telegram to continue to operate in Brazil, he has placed the equivalent of a $200,000 daily fine on them for not fully complying with the government, an amount so high that one could speculate that it is intended to drive the company out of the country altogether, thereby undercutting Bolsonaro’s conservative coalition.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has maintained that the information investigators requested “is technologically impossible for us to obtain.” He has also doubled down on the company’s support for users’ “right to private communication.”
It is not readily known if Telegram will pay the penalties, file a lawsuit, or cease operations in Brazil altogether.
The suspension was not the first time Telegram has been targeted by the Brazilian judiciary. In March 2022, left-wing Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a known opponent of Bolsonaro’s, banned the app due to what he called the company’s “negligence” in combatting disinformation. He also froze the bank accounts of citizens who protested the election results. The company quickly complied and agreed to de-platform Bolsonaro supporter Allan dos Santos in return for resumed service. Many conservatives argue that Bolsonaro’s re-election bid was stolen.
Earlier today, Bolsonaro’s private resident was raided by federal police as part of an investigation of forged COVID-19 vaccination data. Police said in a statement that Bolsonaro — who only recently returned to Brazil after a months-long stay in the U.S. — was part of an effort to “sustain the discourse aimed at attacking the vaccine against COVID-19.” Two of his associates were taken into custody. Da Silva is an outspoken supporter of the vaccines.