--- category: Modern Incident created: 2026-05-22 date: 2023-04-26 location: Espírito Santo, Brazil summary: On April 26, 2023, Federal Judge Wellington Lopes da Silva of Espírito Santo ordered a nationwide suspension of Telegram and daily fines of approximately US$198,000 after the platform refused to produce subscriber data from two neo-Nazi channels, 'Brazilian Anti-Semitic Movement' and 'Anti-Semitic Front,' which had been recovered from a school shooting suspect's phone; the suspension was lifted April 28, 2023 after partial compliance. tags: - Event - Brazil - NeoNazi - Accelerationism - LegalProceeding - Telegram updated: 2026-05-22 --- On April 26, 2023, Federal Judge Wellington Lopes da Silva of the Federal Court in Espírito Santo ordered a nationwide suspension of the messaging platform Telegram throughout Brazil, citing the platform's refusal to produce subscriber data demanded by the Federal Police (Polícia Federal) in connection with a neo-Nazi extremism investigation linked to the wave of Brazilian school attacks that began with the [2022 Aracruz School Shootings](/events/2022-aracruz-school-shootings/).[^1] ### The Order Judge da Silva's order required Google and Apple to remove Telegram from their app stores in Brazil and directed mobile carriers to block access to the platform nationwide. Telegram was simultaneously assessed a fine of R$1 million (approximately US$198,000) per day until it produced the required data. The order followed Telegram's partial non-compliance with a prior judicial demand: the platform had provided user data for the administrator of the "Brazilian Anti-Semitic Movement" (Movimento Antissemitico Brasileiro) channel but had declined to provide data on the channel's members or any data from a second channel, "Anti-Semitic Front" (Frente Antissemitica).[^1] ### Evidence Basis Both channels had been recovered from the phone of a school shooting suspect. Brazilian investigators found murder tutorials, bomb-manufacturing instructions, violent videos, and Nazi content within the channels. The investigation formed part of Brazil's federal-level response to the school violence surge of late 2022 and early 2023, during which approximately 60% of the total count of Brazilian school attacks recorded over two decades occurred within a two-year period.[^2] ### Resolution The suspension was lifted on April 28, 2023, approximately 48 hours after it was imposed, after Telegram provided partial compliance with the court's data production requirement. The fine assessment was not publicly quantified after the lifting of the order.[^1] ### Terrorgram Channel Infrastructure The Espirito Santo order is the most specific documented instance in which Brazilian judicial process was applied to the platform infrastructure underlying the Terrorgram Collective's Brazilian operations. The two named channels (Brazilian Anti-Semitic Movement and Anti-Semitic Front) are not publicly confirmed to be Terrorgram Collective channels in the strict sense, but they operated within the same Telegram ecosystem that [Ciro Daniel Amorim Ferreira](/people/ciro-daniel-amorim-ferreira/)'s channels inhabited, and their documented content (murder tutorials, bomb instructions, Nazi propaganda) is consistent with the Terrorgram propagation model documented in the [Dallas Humber](/people/dallas-humber/) prosecution and in [Michele Prado](/people/michele-prado/)'s 2023 ABIN report.[^3] [^1]: France 24. "Brazil court suspends Telegram app in neo-Nazi probe," April 26, 2023. https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230426-brazil-court-suspends-telegram-app-in-neo-nazi-probe; TechTimes. "Brazilian Court Orders Temporary Suspension for Telegram Over Neo-Nazi Groups," April 26, 2023. https://www.techtimes.com/articles/290845/20230426/brazilian-court-orders-temporary-suspension-telegram-over-neo-nazi-groups.htm [^2]: The Lancet Regional Health (Americas). "The rise of school shootings and other related attacks in Brazil," March 27, 2024. PIIS2667-193X(24)00051-6. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanam/article/PIIS2667-193X(24)00051-6/fulltext [^3]: GNET. "Terrorgram and Youth Radicalisation: Understanding Brazil's Online Extremist Landscape," November 22, 2024. https://gnet-research.org/2024/11/22/terrorgram-and-youth-radicalisation-understanding-brazils-online-extremist-landscape/