Wed May 3, 2023 – 4:26 pm EDTWed May 3, 2023 – 5:47 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — A Brazilian judge has partially overturned a previous ruling that banned the popular messaging app Telegram from operating in the country. The platform has long served as a safe haven for supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who has over 1.2 million followers on the site.
The decision comes as Brazilian lawmakers are set to vote on a controversial bill sponsored by a Communist member of Congress and backed by socialist President Lula da Silva that would prohibit “fake news” from circulating on social media.
Telegram was outlawed on Wednesday, April 26 by a federal judge after the company failed to provide authorities with the data of a 16-year-old who carried out a school shooting in November 2022. The teen, government officials claimed at the time, had allegedly been using Telegram to share “neo-Nazi” information.
On Saturday, April 29, Judge Flávio Lucas reversed that decision, stating that ban was “not reasonable, given the broad impact throughout the national territory on the freedom of communication of thousands of people who are absolutely strangers to the facts under investigation.”
Although Lucas
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