Will the sword of Damocles fall on Telegram's head?

A judge at Brazil's Supreme Court, who decided on Friday to block such messaging in the country, gave Saturday 24 hours to comply with the law and avoid being blocked.

"So far, Telegram has partially complied with court orders, but it needs to comply fully to reverse the decision," Judge Alexandre de Moraes said in a new resolution.

The day before, he had decided to block the messaging, accusing him of not having sufficiently fought the disinformation circulating there.

Bolsonaro criticizes Friday's decision

This decision "is inadmissible", then reacted President Bolsonaro, particularly fond like many Brazilians of this application.

The judge “has not acted against the two or three people who he thinks should be blocked, so he decides to affect 70 million people (…).

What is at stake is our freedom,” the president said.

Telegram is downloaded on approximately 53% of mobiles in Brazil.

This encrypted online messaging is a keystone of Jair Bolsonaro's campaign strategy, which aims for presidential re-election in October and defends unlimited freedom of expression.

But, unlike other platforms, on Telegram there is practically no content moderation of messages and groups can gather up to 200,000 members, which considerably increases the viral potential of false information.

The government's action

The 24-hour deadline was given after Pavel Durov – the Russian founding boss of Dubai-headquartered Telegram – apologized to the Supreme Court, citing a “communications problem” while demanding a new deadline for meet the requirements of Brazilian justice.

At the same time, the Brazilian government filed an appeal on Saturday before another Supreme Court judge, finding that the blocking of messaging was “disproportionate”.

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