Telegram messaging app returns to Brazil after suspension

Telegram messaging app was up and running in Brazil on Saturday after a federal judge revised an earlier ruling suspending it over company's failure to hand over data on neo-Nazi activity.

But in lifting suspension, judge kept in place a daily fine of $1 million reais (about $200,000) for Telegram’s refusal to provide data, according to a press statement provided by federal court that issued ruling.

Complete suspension “is not reasonable, considering wide affectation throughout national territory of freedom of communication of thousands of people who are absolutely strangers to facts under investigation,” judge Flávio Lucas was quoted as saying in statement.

Telegram h been temporarily suspended in context of a police inquiry into school shootings in November, when a former student armed with a semiautomatic pistol and wearing a bulletproof vest fatally shot three people and wounded 13 after barging into two schools in small town of Aracruz in Espirito Santo state.

16-year-old is believed to have been a member of extremist groups on Telegram, where tutorials on murder and manufacture of bombs were disseminated, court's statement said.

Federal Police ordered Telegram to provide details on names, tax identity numbers, profile photos, bank information and registered credit cards, among or things.

messaging app has not delivered registration data of channel members, saying extremist group h been suspended and refore it was unable to provide information. Police maintain group was active on Telegram when request was formalized, court statement said.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said Thursday that company would appeal decision blocking access to its platform in Brazil, claiming in a statement posted to his Telegram account that compliance was “technologically impossible.”

company says it has never shared data on users with any government.

People need only a phone number to sign up for a Telegram account and y can use a pseudonym. Furr, beginning in December, Telegram offered option of creating accounts with anonymous numbers

court statement noted Telegram’s “past clashes with judiciary” in Brazil. Last year, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered a nationwide shutdown of Telegram , arguing it hn’t cooperated with authorities.

“Technology companies need to understand that cyberspace cannot be a free territory, a different world (…) with its own rules created and managed by agents who commercially exploit it,” Lucas, judge in current case, said in Saturday's statement.

Brazil has been grappling with a wave of school attacks. re have been almost two dozen attacks or violent episodes in schools since 2000, half of m in last 12 months, including killing of four children at a day care center April 5.

Brazil’s federal government has strived to stamp out school violence with a particular focus on influence of social media. goal is to prevent furr incidents, particularly holding platforms responsible for failing to remove content that allegedly incites violence.

Regulation of social media platforms was a recurring me earlier this month when President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met with his Cabinet ministers, Supreme Court justices, governors and mayors.

Telegram has been blocked in past by or governments, including Iran, China and Russia, while in latter country Kremlin partisans have also employed it as a digital force to support President Vlimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.