Brazilians Kicked Off WhatsApp Again After Judge Orders Another Blackout

Brazilians were suddenly forced out of their WhatsApp chats this Monday afternoon by a judicial order to block the messaging service for 72 hours.

This is the second time in five months that a judge has ordered a block on the service owned by Facebook and used by more than 100 million people in Latin America's largest country.

Judge Marcel Maia Montalvão's decision, from a court in the northeastern state of Sergipe, applies to the five main wireless operators in Brazil and would reportedly bring fines of 500,000 Brazilian reals, or $143,000, per day if they do not comply.

Though the reason for the order was not released, it appears to be related to police requests to access WhatsApp messages linked to an organized-crime and drug-trafficking case.

Montalvão is the same judge who, in March, ordered the detention of the vice president of Facebook's Latin American operations, Diego Dzodan, for not complying with an order to hand over information. He was released just a few hours later.

Montalvão's current ruling comes five months after a court in São Paulo state ordered the service be shut down for 48 hours. Another court then ruled in favor of a complaint by the company and the suspension was lifted 12 hours later.

This time the Brazilian telecommunications association, SindiTelebrasil, released a statement underlining that the carriers had nothing to do with the case and that they would be complying with the resolution.

WhatsApp said in a statement that it was "disappointed" with the ruling that came into force at 2pm.

"The decision affects more than 100 million users who depend upon us to communicate, to run their business, and for much more, just in order to force us to hand over information that we do not have," the statement said. The company also insisted that it had fully cooperated with the courts in Brazil.

Meanwhile, the president of Brazil's telecoms regulation agency, Anatel, was widely reported in local media as saying the measure was disproportionate.

"WhatsApp has to comply with the judicial rulings within its technical capability," João Rezende reportedly said. "But, obviously, blocking the service is not the solution."

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