The Facebook executive briefly jailed in Brazil has been released.

Zuck's veep for Latin America, Diego Dzodan, was locked up on March 1 for refusing to hand over WhatsApp user data to a drug investigation.

An appeals court has now overturned the order that put Dzodan behind bars.

Facebook has told Reuters “Diego's detention was an extreme, disproportionate measure, and we are pleased to see the court in Sergipe issue an injunction ordering his release”.

Reuters quotes “court officials” as saying the arrest followed a fine of around US$250,000 (a million Reais) issued to the company because it's not helping investigators access the WhatsApp data.

The fine has been accumulating for around two months at the rate of 50,000 Reais - about US$13,000 - a day.

WhatsApp trumpets its end-to-end encryption, which means The Social NetworkTM can't comply with orders to hand over messages.

According to The Grauniad, law enforcement in Brazil wants message content from a WhatsApp messaging group, geolocation information, and other data. ®