Brazil Lifts X Ban Following Musk’s Compliance With Court Demands - 1

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Brazil Lifts X Ban Following Musk’s Compliance With Court Demands

  • Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
  • Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor

In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!

  • Brazil’s Supreme Court authorized X’s return after months of suspension.
  • Musk agreed to comply after facing fines and legal threats targeting X and Starlink.
  • The contested accounts belonged mostly to Bolsonaro supporters questioning the 2022 election results.

Brazil’s Supreme Court has authorized the return of X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, after the company complied with demands from the country’s top court, as reported by Bloomberg . The platform had been suspended for months after Musk refused to follow Brazilian regulations.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes stated in an order issued Tuesday that the company had met all the requirements necessary for the immediate return of activities in Brazil, bringing an end to the suspension.

The months-long standoff between Musk and Moraes had escalated when the judge blocked X in late August after Musk defied local regulations by shutting down the platform’s Brazil office and refusing to remove certain user accounts.

The closure of the Brazil office was in response to orders to take down profiles that allegedly posed a threat to the country’s democracy. After Musk’s refusal, the court imposed the ban. In the following weeks, Moraes targeted Musk’s other businesses, including satellite-internet provider Starlink, with fines and legal threats.

In September, X briefly went back online after the platform switched to Cloudflare as its cloud service provider. According to Cloudflare’s CEO, X avoided the ban by “coincidence,” but that coincidence ended up costing Musk almost $2 million, as noted by TechCrunch .

In late September, Musk reversed his position, agreeing to comply with the court’s demands, as noted by Bloomberg. The platform appointed legal representation in Brazil and took down the contested accounts, which mostly belonged to supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who had questioned the results of his 2022 election loss.

Musk’s shift came after Brazil’s Supreme Court threatened daily fines of 5 million reais ($903,000) and levied significant penalties on X for temporarily bypassing the ban. Brazil withdrew 18.35 million reais from local bank accounts of X and Starlink to cover fines, as reported by Bloomberg.

Musk had previously accused Moraes of attempting to censor conservative voices, but the judge argued that the court’s actions were necessary to curb hate speech and misinformation that could undermine Brazil’s democratic institutions.

Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to Researchers for Pioneering Work in Machine Learning - 2

Photo by Arthur Hinton on Unsplash

Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to Researchers for Pioneering Work in Machine Learning

  • Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
  • Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor

In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!

  • Geoffrey E. Hinton and John J. Hopfield were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024
  • The Committee considered their machine learning work crucial for the development of AI as we know it today
  • The researchers used tools from physics to develop their artificial neural networks

The Nobel Committee for Physics announced this Tuesday that Geoffrey E. Hinton and John J. Hopfield were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.”

Mark Pearce, a member of the Nobel Committee of Physics, told CNN that the researcher’s work paved the way for all the AI technology we have today.

Hopfield—a Princeton professor—created the system to associate, restore information, and act as an associative memory, and Hinton—a computer scientist at the University of Toronto and former Google employee— a method to discover properties in data that later evolved to artificial neural networks. The award for the researchers includes 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million). Hinton declared to be “flabbergasted” by the recognition.

The committee explained on X more about the decision and the impact of the researcher’s work. “They have shown a completely new way for us to use computers to aid and to guide us to tackle many of the challenges our society faces,” states the post. “Thanks to their work humanity now has a new item in its toolbox, which we can choose to use for good purposes. Machine learning based on artificial neural networks is currently revolutionizing science, engineering, and daily life.”

On the social media platform, many users complained about the experts’ legacy and its relation with physics. “Ok, but next year go back to awarding actual physics,” wrote one user. “Important work but not physics,” said another.

However, according to the New York Times , the committee explained that Dr. Hopfield and Dr. Hinton “used tools from physics to construct methods that helped lay the foundation for today’s powerful machine learning.”