I had to check with local news, because I couldn't believe it. It checks out, he did impose the fine. (It's R$50k if somebody is as uninformed as I was.)
The text is weird. It kind of looks like they meant to write something else entirely.
The order does say Apple and Google must take down the VPN apps, but the way it's been written makes me think it was intended to order VPN apps to make Twitter/X unavailable, but someone misunderstood it or poorly expressed it.
Of course you can't expect judges to understand technical terms very well, but this guy has been dealing with tech long enough I feel like they should know this VPN text is bullshit.
There are some pretty well known VPNs that are NOT on that list. Private Internet Access (PIA) for example is absent. Sure, it's used more for torrenting than anything else, but it's one of the most popular VPNs.
I thought maybe PIA just doesn't operate in Brazil, but they actually have a specific page dedicated to it:
Microsoft and Apple operating systems include native VPN clients capable of connecting to many commercial and enterprise VPNs. Some routers and mobile hotspots include VPN clients, over which mobile phone traffic can be routed.
Arbitrary traffic can be tunneled over SSH to a low-cost VPS. Web browser extensions can tunnel traffic over SOCKS proxy. Tor/Tails can route traffic globally, without VPN.
Since I can't edit my comment anymore, here's an update: The order to take down VPN apps from app stores has been suspended until further action by X or Elon Musk.
But predictable. Contempt of and banning speech because it’s disruptive to the regime (cynically “our democracy”) and harassing political opposition is commonplace for socialist and leftist governments.
> IN VIEW OF ALL THE ABOVE, given the necessary legal requirements, fumus boni iuris – consisting of the repeated, conscious and voluntary failure to comply with court orders and failure to pay the daily fines applied, in addition to the attempt to not submit to the Brazilian legal system and Judiciary, to establish an environment of total impunity and “lawless land” on social networks as well as
> Brazilians, including during the 2024 municipal elections, the periculum in mora – consisting of the maintenance and expansion of the instrumentalization of X BRAZIL, through the action of extremist groups and digital militias on social networks, with massive dissemination of Nazi, racist, fascist, hate speeches, anti-democratic speeches, including in the period leading up to the 2024 municipal elections,
> I DETERMINE:
> (1) IMMEDIATE, COMPLETE AND INTEGRAL SUSPENSION OF THE OPERATION OF “X BRASIL INTERNET LTDA” in the national territory, until all court orders issued in these proceedings are complied with, fines are duly paid and a legal or natural person representing the company in the national territory is appointed in court. In the case of a legal entity, its administrative representative must also be appointed. The President of the National Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL), CARLOS MANUEL BAIGORRI must be notified, including by electronic means, to IMMEDIATELY take all necessary measures to implement the measure, with this COURT being notified within a maximum of 24 (twentyfour) hours.
> (2) THE SUMMONS, to be complied with within 5 (five) days, and must immediately notify the court of the companies (2.1) APPLE and GOOGLE in Brazil to insert technological obstacles capable of making it impossible for users of the IOS (APPLE) and ANDROID (GOOGLE) systems to use the “X” application and remove the “X” application from the APPLE STORE and GOOGLE PLAY STORE stores and, similarly, in relation to applications that enable the use of VPN ('virtual private network'), such as, for example: Proton VPN, Express VPN, NordVPN, Surfshark, TOTALVPN, Atlas VPN, Bitdefender VPN; (2.2) Which manage backbone access services in Brazil, so that they insert technological obstacles in them capable of making it impossible for users of the “X” application to use;
> (2.3) Internet service providers, represented by their Presidents, for example ALGAR TELECOM, OI, SKY, LIVE TIM, VIVO, CLARO, NET VIRTUA, GVT, etc..., so that they insert technological obstacles capable of making the use of the application “X” unfeasible; and (2.4) That manage personal mobile service and switched fixed telephone service, so that they insert technological obstacles capable of making the use of the application “X” unfeasible
> (3) THE APPLICATION OF A DAILY FINE of R$50,000.00 (fifty thousand reais) to individuals and legal entities that engage in conduct involving the use of technological subterfuges to continue communications carried out by “X”, such as the use of VPN ('virtual private network'), without prejudice to other civil and criminal sanctions, in accordance with the law.
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.
This is a very, very sad day for the Internet. Unfortunately, you can expect that every app and every platform will get localized and blocking will be normalized.
Soon TikTok will be blocked in the USA. I expect this to serve as an example and an avalanche to follow across the globe.
Blocking a platform for alleged crimes committed the by operator or participants is a punishment for all the users. It’s ridiculous but unfortunately, it appears that the world is ready to accept this as a solution.
How are you going to prove that TikTok is an intelligence and Psyop arm the PLA? The CCP does not respond to discovery in court cases of adversary nations.
In this case was X not explicitly asked to remove the illegal content? They could have simply complied with the local law and avoided this outcome. With their hardcore engineers I’m sure they could have come up with a region-locked solution.
"A Brazilian judge tells Elon that he has to block certain users of X. Elon says no. The judge says that he will then put X's legal representative in Brazil in jail. Elon closes the offices in Brazil. The judge says that he has to have a legal representative in Brazil, that is what the law says. Elon says "if I name another representative you will put him in jail". Then the judge orders X to be blocked in Brazil. And he threatens to fine those who try to use X in Brazil through VPNs. In other words, users who easily use X in Brazil to see memes become potential criminals when they did nothing illegal.
It's crazy. It's an abuse of authority. Because let's suppose that Carlinho Da Souza calls for burning all the kids alive, the one who commits a crime (let's suppose) is Carlinho, and Justice should be focused on him, not on the company that provides its platform without knowing beforehand that Carlinho is an idiot, and even knowing it later from his posts. And you shouldn't demand that the company prevent Carlinho from exposing his stupidity, that would be like telling the cell phone company not to let me talk on the phone because I threatened to break someone's face. And then, since the company says no, it won't prevent me from talking on the phone, then it blocks the cell phone signal throughout the country, for everyone.
Freedom of expression is being able to say what you want and take responsibility for the consequences. But the consequences are for the alleged offender, not for people who have nothing to do with it.
To make another cheap analogy, if someone stabs a neighbor, you can't ban knives and force butchers to cut meat with their teeth."
In case people are not aware, numerous professors of law in Brazil, pro democracy organizations, and journalists have called the change in Brazil as a lunge towards authoritarianism. This justice in particular, Alexandre de Moraes, has been called a threat to democracy many times even a few years ago. Example: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/world/americas/bolsonaro-...
Unfortunately the courts have made their own laws. De Moraes claims the court he previously served on gave him the power to issue secret unilateral censorship orders from the court he now serves on. It’s all convenient but obviously doesn’t pass the sniff test for legality. If the Brazilian governments wants new powers to censor the speech of political opponents, it must do so through constitutional change.
This is what Twitter/X is defending, and it is the right thing to defend. You cannot have democracy without free speech. And if businesses cannot conduct operations without threat of unreasonable fines and arrest of their legal representatives, then Brazil won’t be a good destination for business either. It is also very telling that Lula, who has a long history of corruption and scandals, came out to endorse Alexandre de Moraes’s actions. Meanwhile, other justices must either stay silent or support them to avoid retribution. It’s a scary time in Brazil.
Nah, the Brazilian government will lose this round. X is not going to cave, and the government doesn’t have the technological capacity to quickly spin up their own Great Firewall.
In what way? Musk decides what's OK and not OK on twitter.
Twitter isn't a platform to promote democracy, it promotes what Musk wants.
Twitter has turned into hot garbage. For years my feed was pretty clean as it's almost exclusively tech. Gave it up recently as it was clogged with right-wing conspiracy, odd videos and random made up AI young women randomly following me occasionally.
I might not agree with Elon Musk on things he says and does these days, but he's very much in the right here, at least if you value freedom of speech, privacy, and democracy.
The judge tried to silence the political opposition on Twitter via shadowbans and removal, Elon didn't comply, so they decided to go after Twitter employees in Brazil, to which Elon shut everything down to prevent the employees from being jailed, then since Twitter has no bank accounts in Brazil, they went after Starlink's accounts, and now they've banned the platform, add to that that they're fining people exorbitant amounts of money for circumventing the ban.
I'm oversimplifying it, but the matter of a fact is that this judge and the political party in power are acting like fascists, they've even tried getting several popular VPN applications banned by asking Google and Apple to remove them.
EDIT: For those in the comments pointing towards India (Modi) and Turkey (Erdogan). I personally didn't like when Elon bent over for them, he likes to call himself a free speech absolutist, but he's a hypocrite, and those aren't the only two cases of him going against is so called morals, but that doesn't change the fact that this is wrong, and two wrongs don't make a right.
> I'm oversimplifying it, but the matter of a fact is that this judge and the political party in power are acting like fascists, they've even tried getting several popular VPN applications banned by asking Google and Apple to remove them.
The political party in power is socialist and defines itself as socialist. The president openly defines himself as a "socialist". [1]
So, they aren't acting as fascists, they are acting as socialists. Which, granted, is mostly the same in many aspects.
For those saying "just use a VPN" -- who is to say the BR government isn't going to use this as a cash extraction weapon against those critical of the state.
Pull up a list of all known BR notable people on twitter. See if they tweeted anything since the ban was in effect. Fine them and rake in the $$$.
VPN users are being fined as part of the order, a pretty massive fine.
These rulings are clearly arbitrary and have no basis on anything. They should be thought more like a Monarch's orders. Yes the monarch can any day order using Linux you will have to pay a big fine if he somehow gets angry on Linux.
I wonder what all the walled garden lovers have to say about this. Would have been nice to be able to install apps and VPNs on your phones without Apple's or the government's ability to block it right? Or are you still going to stick to the "it's for our own safety" party line?
Walled garden are an orthogonal (although themselves non trivial) issues compared to an arbitrary court issuing random arbitrary monarchical summons. No amount of custom tweaked linux will protect you there.
The main issue here – and this is will eventually happen to every democracy – is that given the right incentives and conditions, _everything_ can be considered "legal" from a system perspective.
Because of authoritarian traumas post-WWII, most democracies evolved to a highly controlled executive, mostly by the judiciary – which is supposed to be monitored by the legislative.
But if you pack the court (the left is dominates Brazil in the last 40 years) and pay enough to the House (the executive controls the federal budget), you pretty much won the game (you are able to make your own rules).
It's amazing how someone from outside like Elon Musk is way, way more powerful than all elected representatives in Brazil, simply because he is somewhat independent from the political apparatus (the most voted congressman in the last election had been arbitrarily banned from social media, so votes really don't count).
The only way out is a combination of international pressure + local manifestations.
On paper, the Congress is perfectly capable of removing any supreme court minister for any kind of wrongdoing. They can't exactly reverse the decisions, but they can make them ineffective too.
On practice, well, they are clearly above the other powers, and only the supreme court plenarium can do anything about the individual judges.
> X and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in several countries — mostly authoritarian regimes such as Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to quell dissent and unrest.
In judicial systems like the Brazilian (and sadly many European ones) a judge that’s sufficiently high up in the judicial ladder gets to be judge and jury.
He is technically bound by the law, but he also has the power to interpret the law as he sees fit (many such cases in Portugal for instance).
This system puts too much power in the hands of a single person and as such is ripe for abuse for personal causes… or worst, for personal gains. There’s nothing democratic about this.
It should be a jury of fellow peers to decide if someone is guilty of actually breaking a law.
I don't think it is about judicial systems and what not. The judge is only able to take dictatorial powers in Brazil because the society as a whole is not in a position to fight against it and kind of accepts it as something unfixable (lots of people might even support it). I doubt the Brazilian Constitution gives him such vast power.
Even in Brazil typically one person does not get to be judge and jury. Alexandre de Moraes is currently on the supreme federal court, and was previously president of the superior electoral court, which is the other top level court in Brazil. Note that De Moraes served on both courts at the same time. As part of his powers on the superior electoral court, he granted himself the authority to perform unilateral censorship through secret orders as part of his duties in the federal court. This is obviously not legal and totally absurd legal theory since it violates the separation of powers of these two courts. These powers should only be granted to the judicial system through new legislation or changes to the constitution.
What starlink chooses to do will be most interesting, deny any connection, block X like the isps have been ordered and try and get their bank accounts reinstated.
Or pull out of Brazil on the ground and operate as a rogue isp whose money can be blocked, in the short term at least but not their service.
I hope it's the 2nd, be a lesson to all world leaders, and not just ultra authoritarian ones, that the Internet doesn't respect geographic boarder and you cannot control it like that.
> that the Internet doesn't respect geographic boarder
There's a tonne of regulations already applying to the internet. Yes you can control it like that and many countries do. Twitter already had flags for filtering content based on local laws.
It's a cool overall idea, but no. It doesn't work like that in practice. Not for a person not very informed about traffic masking anyway.
Starlink cannot really operate as a "rogue ISP"; they have to license radio spectrum from Brazil and they have to share lawfully intercepted communications with Law Enforcement.
Starlink ceased operations in brazil and doesnt have a bank account. Musk tweeted that he will keep it for free in brazil because some remote schools use it.
I’m guessing starlink is already (or soon will be) ilegal to sell in Brazil.
So, assuming this judge won’t go as far as forcing people with starlink antennas to remove their existing installations, they will be the only ones able to use outside access. And that is an extremely low percentage of the population.
The core facts are: Brazil demanded information regarding Brazilian users, and believed it was in their right to do so. X believed that the requests did not comply with Brazilian laws, and refused. Neither side yielded, so X closed up shop in Brazil, and, as a result, Brazil is blocking access to X.
I can't express in words how horrible it's been to see the country I loved go spiral downhill due to a corrupt president and an non elected judge with ties to the REDACTED faction.
At least 30% of the country is in favor of that.
The country is infected with corruption everywhere, from small scale to the core.
I'm leaving the land my family has worked hard for 200 years and moving to Uruguai. At least I have the option.
I always wanted to stay apart from political discussion and for the most of the time I was center-left. From now on, I do not help nor connect with any cockroach who endorse this (the brazilian left wing party).
They don't need to. Selective enforcement is a key point of dictatorships. They can apply this fine to people they don't like. In general all such orders will have a chilling effect.
Citing that it might be cumbersome for App Stores to implement the order then revert it, de Moraes reverted the order for Google and Apple to ban VPNs from Stores.
I bet it won't stop there. He won't be satisfied until he blocks Tor too, which X / Twitter could plausibly setup as an Onion service.
This is all because the National Assembly that promulgated the 1988 Brazilian Constitution chose to specifically ban anonymity. It's on paragraph IV, article 5 of Brazilian Constitution.
It is funny how many people who, if Putin's Russia did this, would immediately understand what is going on here and not make complicated excuses about law or the subtle nature of free speech, instead when Brazil does this pretend that this is something different simply because they so vehemently disagree with Musk and his politics.
Of course most of those people also disagree with Putin's politics, but to them Musk is the "near enemy", which is more dangerous to them than the "far enemy".
If one sees any fundamental psychological drive in an average American's positive reaction to this news other than pure tribal/religious desire to annihilate their political opponents, one has not yet put on those nice sunglasses from They Live. Don't get me wrong, of course there is the occasional actually principled rational person, but overall the vast majority of reactions to this fall along tribal lines, even here at the orange site, which maybe once was full of geeky libertarian types but has clearly for a long time now been overrun by a different sort of person.
Somebody needs to patiently sit down with this judge and explain to him that the jurisdiction of his court (and his understanding of technology) has limits.
I don't know about India, but in Brazil, the requests sent to X (Twitter) have no legal basis, that is, they are illegal by nature. The entire process that resulted in this blocking is secret and not even the defense lawyers had access to the investigation.
I am not sure why people keep bringing up Turkey or India as a justification for authoritarianism in Brazil. The orders for content takedowns in India were more obviously legal and were not done in secret, but in full public view with clear avenues for legal challenge.
On the other hand, in Brazil Alexandre de Moraes sits on two different courts at the same time and claims that one court gave him the power to unilaterally censor/ban/arrest people in secret from the other court. It is obviously a farce, even to the slightest investigation. Twitter/X is correct to challenge it since it isn’t legal within Brazil.
A quick google search on Mike Benz came up with his recent interview by Tucker Carlson titled "The Deep State's Step-by-Step Plan to End Free Speech".
You know Tucker Carlson is such a big fan of Putin, he was the only western journalist allowed to interview him, which he did. Just listen to the interview, they both just spew fascistic nonsense for two hours. Tucker desperately tries to have Putin condemn the American "wokeness", while the later doesn't listen and lectures Carlson in a "blood and soil" rewriting of 20th century history.
So yeah, I don't think anyone should be taking their informations from either of those clowns.
Well this is fun. Nice to see a government with some teeth for once instead of bowing to the whims of every multibillion mega corporation or agitated billionaire.
It's nice to see a government which is threatening to fine its citizens US$8,900 per day for using a website which was banned because it didn't remove the accounts of that government's political opponents?
Yes very nice to see a court acting as judge jury and executioner all at once and fining random VPN users random amounts without needing boring things like law. Maybe Plato was right and philospher kings work best.
I am glad to see Brazil is not afraid of these billionaires. If only the US could start enforcing laws the same, no matter what your worth or who you are.
I wonder if Brazil is finally going after corruption that I believe exists there.
>“implement technological barriers to prevent the use of the X app by users of the iOS and Android systems” and to block the use of VPN applications.
I wonder how they can selectivity enforce the VPN part of the ban ?
You should be embarrassed to be such a petty authoritarian cheerleader just because that power is being abused against someone you dislike and disagree with.
I'm relieved that at least HN is pushing back on opinions like these. If you really want to be scared, look at the reddit threads discussing this on technology, worldnews, etc. The young online generation is more than happy to embrace authoritarianism and censorship as long as it hurts someone they dislike.
The ironic effect of this ludicrous behavior and judgement by this crazy Brazilian judge will be that more people will flock to X. This will be the Streisand effect on steroids.
Quite the claim and hyperbole. I’m fairly certain the exact opposite will happen because most people are not tech savvy and will not bother to circumvent the blocks in place. Some local alternatives will pop up and they’ll use that instead. Twitter is also no longer the town hall of the internet, or whatever people were calling it.
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
virgulino|1 year ago
Edit: Thanks for this user https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41404325 for posting the court order and bringing this new information:
Apple and Google must remove all VPN apps from their stores!
Apple and Google must DELETE all VPN apps already installed on users' phones!!!
https://apnews.com/article/brazil-musk-x-suspended-de-moraes...
kgeist|1 year ago
virgulino|1 year ago
But the ban and the fine of US$8,900 for users who use a VPN to access X-Twitter still apply!
marcosdumay|1 year ago
I had to check with local news, because I couldn't believe it. It checks out, he did impose the fine. (It's R$50k if somebody is as uninformed as I was.)
sva_|1 year ago
narrator|1 year ago
itsdrewmiller|1 year ago
cute_boi|1 year ago
dannyphantom|1 year ago
https://archive.org/details/Brazil-Court-Suspends-X/
hintymad|1 year ago
And shame on Canada and UK!
matheusmoreira|1 year ago
guhcampos|1 year ago
The order does say Apple and Google must take down the VPN apps, but the way it's been written makes me think it was intended to order VPN apps to make Twitter/X unavailable, but someone misunderstood it or poorly expressed it.
Of course you can't expect judges to understand technical terms very well, but this guy has been dealing with tech long enough I feel like they should know this VPN text is bullshit.
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
baybal2|1 year ago
[deleted]
throwaway87267|1 year ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20240830201851/https://www.conju... (Page 49 and 50, document is in Portuguese)
Brazil is heading down a very dark path.
ddtaylor|1 year ago
I thought maybe PIA just doesn't operate in Brazil, but they actually have a specific page dedicated to it:
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/vpn-server/brazil-vpn
Maybe that VPN is already illegal somehow in Brazil?
walterbell|1 year ago
Arbitrary traffic can be tunneled over SSH to a low-cost VPS. Web browser extensions can tunnel traffic over SOCKS proxy. Tor/Tails can route traffic globally, without VPN.
Other network arms races: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41396206
virgulino|1 year ago
From what I'm reading, it also orders Apple and Google to DELETE VPN apps already installed on users' phones!
(I think this has been done in the past, in Brazil)
btilly|1 year ago
How are they planning to handle remote employees whose employers use VPNs?
Zezinho|1 year ago
throwaway87267|1 year ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20240830235848/https://www.cnnbr...
nemo44x|1 year ago
But predictable. Contempt of and banning speech because it’s disruptive to the regime (cynically “our democracy”) and harassing political opposition is commonplace for socialist and leftist governments.
dannyphantom|1 year ago
I uploaded the ruling to the Internet Archive along with a copy of the document I pushed through Google Translate (which may not be perfect).
https://archive.org/details/Brazil-Court-Suspends-X
> IN VIEW OF ALL THE ABOVE, given the necessary legal requirements, fumus boni iuris – consisting of the repeated, conscious and voluntary failure to comply with court orders and failure to pay the daily fines applied, in addition to the attempt to not submit to the Brazilian legal system and Judiciary, to establish an environment of total impunity and “lawless land” on social networks as well as
> Brazilians, including during the 2024 municipal elections, the periculum in mora – consisting of the maintenance and expansion of the instrumentalization of X BRAZIL, through the action of extremist groups and digital militias on social networks, with massive dissemination of Nazi, racist, fascist, hate speeches, anti-democratic speeches, including in the period leading up to the 2024 municipal elections,
> I DETERMINE:
> (1) IMMEDIATE, COMPLETE AND INTEGRAL SUSPENSION OF THE OPERATION OF “X BRASIL INTERNET LTDA” in the national territory, until all court orders issued in these proceedings are complied with, fines are duly paid and a legal or natural person representing the company in the national territory is appointed in court. In the case of a legal entity, its administrative representative must also be appointed. The President of the National Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL), CARLOS MANUEL BAIGORRI must be notified, including by electronic means, to IMMEDIATELY take all necessary measures to implement the measure, with this COURT being notified within a maximum of 24 (twentyfour) hours.
> (2) THE SUMMONS, to be complied with within 5 (five) days, and must immediately notify the court of the companies (2.1) APPLE and GOOGLE in Brazil to insert technological obstacles capable of making it impossible for users of the IOS (APPLE) and ANDROID (GOOGLE) systems to use the “X” application and remove the “X” application from the APPLE STORE and GOOGLE PLAY STORE stores and, similarly, in relation to applications that enable the use of VPN ('virtual private network'), such as, for example: Proton VPN, Express VPN, NordVPN, Surfshark, TOTALVPN, Atlas VPN, Bitdefender VPN; (2.2) Which manage backbone access services in Brazil, so that they insert technological obstacles in them capable of making it impossible for users of the “X” application to use;
> (2.3) Internet service providers, represented by their Presidents, for example ALGAR TELECOM, OI, SKY, LIVE TIM, VIVO, CLARO, NET VIRTUA, GVT, etc..., so that they insert technological obstacles capable of making the use of the application “X” unfeasible; and (2.4) That manage personal mobile service and switched fixed telephone service, so that they insert technological obstacles capable of making the use of the application “X” unfeasible
> (3) THE APPLICATION OF A DAILY FINE of R$50,000.00 (fifty thousand reais) to individuals and legal entities that engage in conduct involving the use of technological subterfuges to continue communications carried out by “X”, such as the use of VPN ('virtual private network'), without prejudice to other civil and criminal sanctions, in accordance with the law.
eatonphil|1 year ago
Fining even users is a bit surprising.
purple_ferret|1 year ago
Ironic he abandoned the US citing its freedom laws only to wind up in this situation.
blurbleblurble|1 year ago
hintymad|1 year ago
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.
outside1234|1 year ago
Should have kept the focus on Elon Musk breaking the law.
mrtksn|1 year ago
Soon TikTok will be blocked in the USA. I expect this to serve as an example and an avalanche to follow across the globe.
Blocking a platform for alleged crimes committed the by operator or participants is a punishment for all the users. It’s ridiculous but unfortunately, it appears that the world is ready to accept this as a solution.
mikrotikker|1 year ago
SalmoShalazar|1 year ago
itherseed|1 year ago
"A Brazilian judge tells Elon that he has to block certain users of X. Elon says no. The judge says that he will then put X's legal representative in Brazil in jail. Elon closes the offices in Brazil. The judge says that he has to have a legal representative in Brazil, that is what the law says. Elon says "if I name another representative you will put him in jail". Then the judge orders X to be blocked in Brazil. And he threatens to fine those who try to use X in Brazil through VPNs. In other words, users who easily use X in Brazil to see memes become potential criminals when they did nothing illegal.
It's crazy. It's an abuse of authority. Because let's suppose that Carlinho Da Souza calls for burning all the kids alive, the one who commits a crime (let's suppose) is Carlinho, and Justice should be focused on him, not on the company that provides its platform without knowing beforehand that Carlinho is an idiot, and even knowing it later from his posts. And you shouldn't demand that the company prevent Carlinho from exposing his stupidity, that would be like telling the cell phone company not to let me talk on the phone because I threatened to break someone's face. And then, since the company says no, it won't prevent me from talking on the phone, then it blocks the cell phone signal throughout the country, for everyone.
Freedom of expression is being able to say what you want and take responsibility for the consequences. But the consequences are for the alleged offender, not for people who have nothing to do with it.
To make another cheap analogy, if someone stabs a neighbor, you can't ban knives and force butchers to cut meat with their teeth."
ChrisArchitect|1 year ago
Starlink will now be free in Brazil since remote hospitals, schools use it: Musk
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41397506
Starlink's financial assets frozen in Brazil
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41392962
blackeyeblitzar|1 year ago
Unfortunately the courts have made their own laws. De Moraes claims the court he previously served on gave him the power to issue secret unilateral censorship orders from the court he now serves on. It’s all convenient but obviously doesn’t pass the sniff test for legality. If the Brazilian governments wants new powers to censor the speech of political opponents, it must do so through constitutional change.
This is what Twitter/X is defending, and it is the right thing to defend. You cannot have democracy without free speech. And if businesses cannot conduct operations without threat of unreasonable fines and arrest of their legal representatives, then Brazil won’t be a good destination for business either. It is also very telling that Lula, who has a long history of corruption and scandals, came out to endorse Alexandre de Moraes’s actions. Meanwhile, other justices must either stay silent or support them to avoid retribution. It’s a scary time in Brazil.
guywithahat|1 year ago
pr337h4m|1 year ago
outside1234|1 year ago
He chose this.
NomDePlum|1 year ago
Twitter isn't a platform to promote democracy, it promotes what Musk wants.
Twitter has turned into hot garbage. For years my feed was pretty clean as it's almost exclusively tech. Gave it up recently as it was clogged with right-wing conspiracy, odd videos and random made up AI young women randomly following me occasionally.
SalmoShalazar|1 year ago
lemoncookiechip|1 year ago
The judge tried to silence the political opposition on Twitter via shadowbans and removal, Elon didn't comply, so they decided to go after Twitter employees in Brazil, to which Elon shut everything down to prevent the employees from being jailed, then since Twitter has no bank accounts in Brazil, they went after Starlink's accounts, and now they've banned the platform, add to that that they're fining people exorbitant amounts of money for circumventing the ban.
I'm oversimplifying it, but the matter of a fact is that this judge and the political party in power are acting like fascists, they've even tried getting several popular VPN applications banned by asking Google and Apple to remove them.
EDIT: For those in the comments pointing towards India (Modi) and Turkey (Erdogan). I personally didn't like when Elon bent over for them, he likes to call himself a free speech absolutist, but he's a hypocrite, and those aren't the only two cases of him going against is so called morals, but that doesn't change the fact that this is wrong, and two wrongs don't make a right.
SiempreViernes|1 year ago
wtcactus|1 year ago
The political party in power is socialist and defines itself as socialist. The president openly defines himself as a "socialist". [1]
So, they aren't acting as fascists, they are acting as socialists. Which, granted, is mostly the same in many aspects.
[1] https://jacobin.com.br/2023/10/lula-e-a-construcao-do-social...
swader999|1 year ago
declan_roberts|1 year ago
Pull up a list of all known BR notable people on twitter. See if they tweeted anything since the ban was in effect. Fine them and rake in the $$$.
The govt probably WANTS it to be circumvented.
crop_rotation|1 year ago
These rulings are clearly arbitrary and have no basis on anything. They should be thought more like a Monarch's orders. Yes the monarch can any day order using Linux you will have to pay a big fine if he somehow gets angry on Linux.
lemoncookiechip|1 year ago
paxys|1 year ago
crop_rotation|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
brigadier132|1 year ago
crop_rotation|1 year ago
rafaquintanilha|1 year ago
Because of authoritarian traumas post-WWII, most democracies evolved to a highly controlled executive, mostly by the judiciary – which is supposed to be monitored by the legislative.
But if you pack the court (the left is dominates Brazil in the last 40 years) and pay enough to the House (the executive controls the federal budget), you pretty much won the game (you are able to make your own rules).
It's amazing how someone from outside like Elon Musk is way, way more powerful than all elected representatives in Brazil, simply because he is somewhat independent from the political apparatus (the most voted congressman in the last election had been arbitrarily banned from social media, so votes really don't count).
The only way out is a combination of international pressure + local manifestations.
marcosdumay|1 year ago
On practice, well, they are clearly above the other powers, and only the supreme court plenarium can do anything about the individual judges.
seydor|1 year ago
wtcactus|1 year ago
He is technically bound by the law, but he also has the power to interpret the law as he sees fit (many such cases in Portugal for instance).
This system puts too much power in the hands of a single person and as such is ripe for abuse for personal causes… or worst, for personal gains. There’s nothing democratic about this.
It should be a jury of fellow peers to decide if someone is guilty of actually breaking a law.
crop_rotation|1 year ago
blackeyeblitzar|1 year ago
howard941|1 year ago
facorreia|1 year ago
https://www.cgi.br/pagina/marco-civil-law-of-the-internet-in...
theginger|1 year ago
Or pull out of Brazil on the ground and operate as a rogue isp whose money can be blocked, in the short term at least but not their service.
I hope it's the 2nd, be a lesson to all world leaders, and not just ultra authoritarian ones, that the Internet doesn't respect geographic boarder and you cannot control it like that.
viraptor|1 year ago
There's a tonne of regulations already applying to the internet. Yes you can control it like that and many countries do. Twitter already had flags for filtering content based on local laws.
It's a cool overall idea, but no. It doesn't work like that in practice. Not for a person not very informed about traffic masking anyway.
basementcat|1 year ago
seydor|1 year ago
wtcactus|1 year ago
So, assuming this judge won’t go as far as forcing people with starlink antennas to remove their existing installations, they will be the only ones able to use outside access. And that is an extremely low percentage of the population.
shark1|1 year ago
- Brazil
- Venezuela
- North Korea
- China
- Iran
- Myanmar
- Pakistan
- Russia
- Turkmenistan
shark1|1 year ago
yimmothathird|1 year ago
[deleted]
IncreasePosts|1 year ago
Does he have a valid/legal/moral point under Brazilian law with attempts to ban those accounts on X? Or is he just a toady for da Silva?
cowsup|1 year ago
jrflowers|1 year ago
This article covers the beginning of the fight
https://apnews.com/article/brazil-musk-x-twitter-moraes-bef0...
And this one is an update on how both sides are acting kind of ridiculous
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/29/elons-standoff-with-braz...
outside1234|1 year ago
So shutdown it is for Musk
prvc|1 year ago
marcellus777|1 year ago
(1) a supreme court judge ordered X to remove some political profiles saying they are spreading misinformation
(2) coincidentally (or not) most (if not all) profiles are from the opposition
(3) Elon said that that was censorship and closed the office in Brazil
(4) The judge applied hefty fines but those couldn't be fullfied since X doesnt have a bank account in Brazil anymore
(5) The judge orders a judicial blockage of Starlink's brazilian branch accounts to pay for X fines
(4) Finnally, Brazilian law demands a legal representative (a person who will be liable) and Elon say (very loudly) we would not comply
(5) X is now banned by all means
robertlagrant|1 year ago
tmaly|1 year ago
It is sad to see nation states taking the route of censorship, it seems like some super form of helicopter parenting.
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
virgulino|1 year ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41421531
random_dev_1989|1 year ago
dalmo3|1 year ago
hereme888|1 year ago
tux1968|1 year ago
crop_rotation|1 year ago
sturob|1 year ago
swader999|1 year ago
FergusArgyll|1 year ago
Tails [0] is surprisingly easy to use. Do your own research I guess, but it might help you out.
[0] https://tails.net/
geraldog|1 year ago
I bet it won't stop there. He won't be satisfied until he blocks Tor too, which X / Twitter could plausibly setup as an Onion service.
This is all because the National Assembly that promulgated the 1988 Brazilian Constitution chose to specifically ban anonymity. It's on paragraph IV, article 5 of Brazilian Constitution.
I got downvoted for posting the obvious topic here so once again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41316512
Scion9066|1 year ago
geraldog|1 year ago
leumon|1 year ago
crop_rotation|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
hax0ron3|1 year ago
Of course most of those people also disagree with Putin's politics, but to them Musk is the "near enemy", which is more dangerous to them than the "far enemy".
If one sees any fundamental psychological drive in an average American's positive reaction to this news other than pure tribal/religious desire to annihilate their political opponents, one has not yet put on those nice sunglasses from They Live. Don't get me wrong, of course there is the occasional actually principled rational person, but overall the vast majority of reactions to this fall along tribal lines, even here at the orange site, which maybe once was full of geeky libertarian types but has clearly for a long time now been overrun by a different sort of person.
sva_|1 year ago
silverliver|1 year ago
Good luck, Brazil.
consumer451|1 year ago
- Elon Musk on decision to follow Modi's requests for censorship
https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/twitt...
diegoholiveira|1 year ago
blackeyeblitzar|1 year ago
On the other hand, in Brazil Alexandre de Moraes sits on two different courts at the same time and claims that one court gave him the power to unilaterally censor/ban/arrest people in secret from the other court. It is obviously a farce, even to the slightest investigation. Twitter/X is correct to challenge it since it isn’t legal within Brazil.
seydor|1 year ago
farceSpherule|1 year ago
[deleted]
megaman821|1 year ago
Althuns|1 year ago
jrepinc|1 year ago
[deleted]
MrBuddyCasino|1 year ago
[deleted]
ailun|1 year ago
thrance|1 year ago
You know Tucker Carlson is such a big fan of Putin, he was the only western journalist allowed to interview him, which he did. Just listen to the interview, they both just spew fascistic nonsense for two hours. Tucker desperately tries to have Putin condemn the American "wokeness", while the later doesn't listen and lectures Carlson in a "blood and soil" rewriting of 20th century history.
So yeah, I don't think anyone should be taking their informations from either of those clowns.
mikeyouse|1 year ago
[deleted]
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
SalmoShalazar|1 year ago
Wytwwww|1 year ago
nomdep|1 year ago
inglor_cz|1 year ago
crop_rotation|1 year ago
/s
jmclnx|1 year ago
I wonder if Brazil is finally going after corruption that I believe exists there.
>“implement technological barriers to prevent the use of the X app by users of the iOS and Android systems” and to block the use of VPN applications.
I wonder how they can selectivity enforce the VPN part of the ban ?
ta8645|1 year ago
qwerpy|1 year ago
kernal|1 year ago
SalmoShalazar|1 year ago