The move is a blow to President Jair Bolsonaro, who has more
than 1 million followers on the platform and defends it as a key tool for his
re-election bid in October. Justice Alexandre de Moraes said in his ruling that
Telegram repeatedly ignored requests from Brazilian authorities, including a
police request to block profiles and provide information linked to blogger
Allan dos Santos, an ally of Bolsonaro's accused of spreading falsehoods.
The justice added that Telegram has also failed to name a
legal representative in Brazil, unlike its competitors.
Many of Bolsonaro's supporters have turned to Telegram since
the messaging app's competitor WhatsApp changed its policies on message
sharing. The president has often accused de Moraes and Brazil's top court of
rulings that go against freedom of speech.
De Moraes, who chairs a probe on misinformation in Brazilian
social media, issued a warrant for dos Santos' arrest in October. The activist,
a fugitive now based in the United States, has remained active on Telegram,
though.
“The Telegram platform, at every possible opportunity,
failed to heed judicial orders in a total disregard for the Brazilian
judiciary,” de Moraes said in his ruling. He added the suggestion to shut down
the app came from federal police.
Dos Santos said de Moraes' decisions “are based solely on
his will.”
“At some point he will have to stop or be stopped,” the
blogger told Jovem Pan, a radio and TV channel which broadcasts Bolsonaro's
live transmissions every week. “I don't believe the Brazilian people will
accept these atrocities.”
The justice said in his ruling that “the complete and full
suspension of the works of Telegram in Brazil will remain until the judicial
decisions previously issued are carried out.”
De Moraes gave Apple, Google and Brazilian phone carriers
five days to block Telegram from their platforms.
Telegram is Said to Have Blocked 64 of Its Channels in
Germany
Bolsonaro and his allies have encouraged followers to join
Telegram since January 2021 — the same month former US President Donald Trump,
an inspiration for the Brazilian leader, was permanently suspended from Twitter
in the wake of the riot at Capitol Hill.
In January, Bolsonaro was asked by supporters what he
thought about investigations into Telegram.
“It is cowardice what they are trying to do to Brazil,” he
responded.
One of the messaging app's founders, Pavel Durov, said in a
statement that Telegram “had an issue with emails going between our
telegram.org corporate addresses and the Brazilian Supreme Court. As a result
of this miscommunication, the Court ruled to ban Telegram for being
unresponsive.”
“I apologize to the Brazilian Supreme Court for our
negligence. We definitely could have done a better job,” Durov said. “We
complied with an earlier court decision in late February and responded with a
suggestion to send future takedown requests to a dedicated email address.
Unfortunately, our response must have been lost, because the Court used the old
general-purpose email address in further attempts to reach us.”
Durov also asked the court to “consider delaying its ruling
for a few days at its discretion to allow us to remedy the situation by
appointing a representative in Brazil and setting up a framework to react to
future pressing issues like this in an expedited manner.”
The service remained operational Friday evening.
In his ruling, de Moraes also mentions Telegram failing to
remove misleading content from the president's page on the country's electronic
voting system.
While Bolsonaro's Telegram page has more than 1 million
followers, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the frontrunner to
October's presidential elections, has 48,000.
Members of Brazil's electoral authority have expressed
concern about Telegram's long silence amid Bolsonaro's unfounded claims that
the election will be rigged unless printed receipts for votes are instituted.
The latest request from Brazilian authorities seeking
Telegram's cooperation came on March 9, when the chairman of the electoral
authority wrote to Durov.
His predecessor also tried to reach Telegram leaders on
December 16. Brazil's electoral authority said at the time that Durov was not
found at the company's headquarters in the United Arab Emirates.
Brazil's justice minister Anderson Torres criticized the
decision on Twitter, saying the Bolsonaro administration will “immediately seek
a solution to re-establish the people's right to use whatever social media they
like.”
One of Bolsonaro's closest allies, lawmaker Carla Zambelli,
called de Moraes “a tyrant” for the decision.
Fact-checking website Aos Fatos, which monitors dozens of
pro-Bolsonaro social media channels, said several supporters of the Brazilian
president were sharing tutorials on how to install virtual private networks
(VPNs) so they could continue using Telegram. Bolsonaro promised to keep
sharing their messages on messaging app Gettr, which was founded by former
Trump adviser Jason Miller. '-AP