X users rejoice, because the network is active once again in Brazil.

Well, unless you were among those who felt Brazil made a grave mistake in banning X in the first place, and Elon and Co. did the right thing to stand up for "free speech." In which case this is a blow to your principles, and to Elon himself, who made a big show about opposing the "corrupt" Brazilian authorities.

For everyone else, though, it is a wonderful day. Around 20 million X users now can regain access to the app, and thereby abandon Threads and Bluesky, which had each seen usage soar in the country over the past several weeks.

Brazil's Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has confirmed that there is an end to X's suspension in the country, Bloomberg reports. This comes after X agreed to remove some selected accounts of the users, according to Brazilian Government orders. X also appointed a new legal representative in the country.

X had declined the Brazilian Government's demands earlier, stating that those exceeded the law's scope and did not fit in with the principles of freedom of speech on the platform.
However, within one month of being unavailable in the country, X has conformed to all the parameters, and will follow the judgment passed by the officials of Brazil.
Is that a better result?

Well, that depends on your view of the first requests, and what that may or may not mean for government influence over social apps.

Removal requests submitted by Brazilian authorities concern accounts that continued to aver that the 2020 Brazilian election was "stolen," resulting, they say, in an unjust ousting of the former President Jair Bolsonaro." Various investigations failed to prove this theory. Instead of allowing these profiles to feed into a conspiracy that could undermine government authority, Brazilian officials ruled that X must remove them from the app.

But the owner of X Elon Musk, who has been an ally of Bolsonaro and has organized various deals for his companies in Brazil during Bolsonaro's presidency didn't agree that these profiles should be removed. According to Elon's freedom of speech ethos, he thought these users should be able to say whatever they wanted; thus, initially, he refused to comply with the government's requests.
Then Musk went on a number of tirades concerning how corrupt the Brazilian officials are and how they operate the government. Essentially, the heart of Musk's broader objection in that direction is that no government should ever be able to decree the withdrawal of speech that they do not like unless there is clear legal authority for such.

Musk didn't believe that there was in this case, so he opposed it. Which was an expensive decision, with lost revenue over the past 30 or so days.

Which is why X is now aligning with the Brazilian government requests.

Maybe the Brazilian ruling was correct: misinformation that's meant to take down governments can't be allowed to thrive online; or maybe Elon was correct in his position against government censorship.

I don't believe there is an easy way to determine just cause here, and Musk's personal biases have only complicated these issues.

But all the same, X is now to play ball, in order to get back online for Brazilian users.

Though it did also have one final hiccup in paying $5 million in fines related to its stance into the wrong Brazilian bank.  For a company that has been largely bowing in unison to broad lobbying of Brazilian consumer advocates, to say that I'm giving up, this was actually a relatively small part of the overall drama, almost expected.

I mean, not unsurprisingly for X, given the flimsy way the whole operations is apparently being held together. But another note in the broader saga.