Elon Musk-controlled satellite internet provider Starlink has told Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel it will not comply with a court order to block social media platform X in the country until its local accounts are unfrozen.
Anatel confirmed the information to Reuters on Monday after its head Carlos Baigorri told Globo TV it had received a note from Starlink, which has more than 200,000 customers in Brazil, and passed it onto Brazil’s top court.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X, which is also owned by billionaire Musk, for lacking a legal representative in Brazil.
The move also led to the freezing of Starlink’s bank accounts in Brazil. Starlink is a unit of Musk-led rocket company SpaceX. The billionaire responded to the account block by calling Moraes a “dictator.”
I predict that nations will simply start blowing up satellites in space, creating a shroud of debris which will make space exploration nearly impossible.
All these LEO satellites are so low it would only cause trouble for less than 5 years. That’s part of why they are low.
If we ever had something as dense as starlink 500km higher though that’d be a different story.
The satellites trains do it already by themselves, it’s ok.
Seeing what we’ve done to this planet, it’s probably for the best. Space exploration is going to be for the rich and we know how shit they are.
There’s nothing we can do to space except make it harder for ourselves to use it. And we do use it, a lot, and not just for rich people stuff.