A federal appeals court in Brazil lifted Telegram’s nationwide ban earlier this week, according to , with Judge Flávio Lucas ruling that the complete suspension of the messaging app was “unconscionable” given the thousands of people in Brazil who rely on the platform for their needs. Their contact, meanwhile, upheld Telegram’s $200,000 daily fine for failing to provide local authorities with the data it requested.
The original ban came Wednesday after a federal court ordered Apple and Google to temporarily remove the service from their local app stores. Brazilian authorities sought comment after Telegram failed to turn over a full set of data on a pair of neo-Nazi groups on the app accused of inciting violence against schools.
According to The New York Times, a teen accused of two school shootings in November, killing three people and wounding 13, was involved with both groups.
Authorities say they watched Nazi content and violent videos and shared them in those group chats. When they did not comply with the initial court order, Telegram reportedly said both groups had been deleted and that it could not restore the requested information, according to Engadget.
This isn’t the first time Telegram has been briefly banned in Brazil. In 2022, the country’s highest court suspended the app for failing to freeze accounts accused of spreading disinformation ahead of the country’s recent presidential elections. Likewise, this ban was lifted only days later.