For the second time in five months, a Brazil court ordered local telecommunications companies to block access to WhatsApp, this time for 72 hours. The ban is the result of an ongoing case in a Brazilian state court, though the exact nature of the case has not been released.
The ruling— issued last week by a judge from the northeastern state of Sergipe—applies to the five major wireless carriers in Brazil and started midday on Monday. According to a report from media outlet O Globo, the carriers are required to block access to the
This is the third instance of legal trouble faced by WhatsApp in the Latin American country. In March, a Facebook executive was jailed for not releasing WhatsApp messages pertaining to a drug investigation and in December, Brazilian telecommunications companies were ordered to block access to the messaging service for 48 hours.
Approximately 100 million people in Brazil send messages and make calls through WhatsApp, which has more than 900 million active users globally. Following the ban in December, Mark Zuckerberg took to his personal Facebook page to share his disappointment in the ban. He wrote: "I am stunned that our efforts to protect people's data would result in such an extreme decision by a single judge to punish every person in Brazil who uses WhatsApp."
