Justice determines suspension of Telegram in Brazil

The Federal Court of Espírito Santo determined, on the night of this Tuesday (25), the suspension of the operation of Telegram in Brazil. The decision, by Judge Wellington Lopes da Silva, of the 1st Federal Court of Linhares, was handed down after the application did not provide requested information regarding neo-Nazi groups active on Telegram. In addition, the Court set a daily fine of BRL 1 million for not sending the requested data or 5% of the company’s revenue in Brazil in 2022, whichever is less. For the magistrate, “the facts demonstrated by the police authority reveal Telegram’s clear purpose of not cooperating with the ongoing investigation”. Investigation Wellington Lopes da Silva had asked for information about users of an anti-Semitic channel and a chat with the same content, which propagated neo-Nazi concepts and symbols. The requested data included the names of the users of the groups, CPF, profile picture, e-mail, address, registered bank details, among others. The information passed on to the Justice, however, was considered insufficient. “Despite the timely response, the information provided does not comply with the court order. It should be noted that the determination was for Telegram to forward the registration data of ALL members of the channel and the chat group”, informed the magistrate. The application had only informed some data and referring only to the administrator of one of the groups. Until the end of the afternoon of this Wednesday (26), however, the instant messaging application worked normally. Flávio Dino The Minister of Justice and Public Security, Flávio Dino, commented on the matter. For him, the activities of anti-Semitic groups are part of the structure of violence against children and adolescents in Brazil. “The Federal Police asked and the Judiciary Power granted that a social network that is not complying with the decisions, in this case Telegram, have a fine of R$ 1 million per day and temporary suspension of activities, precisely because there are groups called Anti-Semitic Fronts or Anti-Semitic movements operating in these networks and we know that this is at the root of violence against our children and adolescents”.

Agência Brasil