Mark Zuckerberg, who heads WhatsApp’s parent company Facebook, reacted with a Facebook post calling it “a sad day for Brazil”.
Advertisement
It continues: “As yet the company did not attend the court order, the prosecution requrested the blocking of services for a period of 48 hours…which was granted by Judge Sandra Regina Nostre Marques”.
According to BBC, Judge Xavier de Souza said that it was “not reasonable that millions of users be affected by the inertia of the company”.
In the ruling, the court found that it was unreasonable to cut off access to the app for tens of millions of people because the company failed to comply with a court order.
The interruption of WhatsApp’s text message and Internet telephone service caused outrage in Brazil, Latin America’s largest country and led to a war of words on the floor of Congress.
The order a criminal court in Sao Paulo state went into effect at midnight.
The ban was ordered after WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, failed to cooperate in an investigation in the country.
WhatsApp was ordered on a number of occasions over the summer to halt its service, reportedly due to a combination of lobbying from the telecoms industry and criminal activity rife within the messaging app.
Brazilians had also complained bitterly on social media about the suspension.
If you’re in Brazil, you may have been upset that WhatsApp was blocked. Facebook was “working hard” to reverse the block, he said. Facebook’s press office was not immediately available for comment.
‘Brazilians have always been among the most passionate in sharing their voice online, ‘ he said.
Advertisement
Telegram, a rival messaging service, saw over 1.5 million account sign-ups during the outage.
