The goal is that it's a scare tactic. There is no technical way that these fines could be imposed at large, outside of say, people outing themselves publicly or similar. This is the same wording that was used when they blocked Whatsapp.
Even in the USA courts have some limited investigation powers over matters under the jurisdiction of the court, for example when a draft of the Dobbs abortion ruling was leaked.
Brazil has dialed this up to 11 by declaring the Internet as being under their jurisdiction. That means they can act as judge, prosecutor, and jury and issue court orders regarding anything that happens on the Internet. There is zero recourse because they are the supreme court.
> How does the court have what also seems like legislative power?
It doesn't. It just does it anyway.
(Technically, it can dictate to courts how to interpret laws. On practice, it dictates things like "a person can only be arrested after a judge hosts a trial and orders it" as "a person can only be arrested after all judges host a trial". The power to interpret laws is extremely ambiguous.)
Yes. However checks and balances work because the other branches will choose to assert their power over a branch that is overstepping. However, the other branches are in the hands of the ruling socialists, and they are just happy to let the judiciary do their dirty work. And, they have quite a few skeletons still in their closet after the Lava Jato scandal.
Anyway a thorough explanation of the applicable law, point by point
> However, the other branches are in the hands of the ruling socialists
I'm sorry, but... what?
The Executive is the one closest to this qualification, but Lula, Haddad, Zé Múcio, Tebet and the others in power are nowhere even close to being socialists! Lula perhaps, until about a couple decades ago was a little bit closer but now he's not even on the left very much.
The Congress and the Senate, on the other hand, are mostly in the hands of neopentecostal evangelicals, the pro-gun nutjobs, the agrobusiness tycoons and other capitalists and fascists.
Fernando Haddad, Minister of Finance, did his own Master's dissertation defending socio-economics of the USSR, before the USSR collapsed and was an embarrassment for cocktail communists everywhere. The guy who calls economic shots is literally a communist fanboy.
Carlos Lupi, also Minister, is literally one of the vice presidents of the Socialist International . The word socialist is literally in the name, and he is VP of it worldwide!
2 - CONGRESS:
The opposition is in clear minority in in both chambers[1]. The opposition has almost a 2:1 deficit vs the Government inside the Chamber of Deputies
3 - MACRO:
The president's own party is in an alliance with the communist party[2]
They can't. I can easily use a Brazil endpoint to establish a tunnel elsewhere and browse X, formerly Twitter. I suppose they could try fining the VPN service provider. (But even then they won't be able to prove what's going on.)
Why they could: The ruling socialist party is allowing the judge to go on a rampage because the ruling class has too many skeletons in their closet to mount an effective defense against the opposition. They hope they can just play dead during this mess - but if history is any guide, the judge will come after them later.
The law does apply. Xitter is being sued, but Elon refuses to appoint a legal representative in the country. The judge has the right to ban the product until the owner or their representative shows up.
Not really. Using VPN is illegal in China. The police can put you in jail for using VPNs. Of course, there are very few cases like this even though many people use underground VPNs. This is typical behavior of an authoritarian state: the government reserves the rights to punish you when the situation is right.
Fining even users is a bit surprising.