The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he hopes the crisis surrounding the social network X in Brazil might teach the world that “it isn’t obliged to put up with [Elon] Musk’s far-right free-for-all just because he is rich”.
Lula’s comments to the network CNN Brasil came after the supreme court voted unanimously on Monday to uphold the ban on X, which is now largely inaccessible in one of its biggest global markets.
The suspension was first ordered on Friday as a result of the company’s refusal to obey court orders requiring the removal of profiles accused of spreading disinformation and for the social network to name a local legal representative.
Listen, Musk is an asshole who has created large problems at Xitter. There is absolutely no debate on that.
HOWEVER I have to wonder if most of the people cheering what’s happening in Brazil actually know what’s going on?
Did you know that one single Judge has been given the power the censor the Internet? Do you know that no justification needs to be released to the public about WHY a person, account, or post is being censored, removed, or banned? Do you know that this Judge actually banned Apple and Google from distributing any VPN Software before they were forced to change the order due to public outcry? Do you know that the fines this Judge is issuing have no basis in the law?
Even prominent Brazilian Attorneys, like Thiago Amparo, who previously supported this Judge and their work are now saying that it’s going too far.
Brazil now has an Internet Censor who obviously doesn’t understand the technology who is issuing censorship orders that require no justification and to the surprise of no one his orders are helpful almost entirely to the current President specifically and the ruling party in general.
Here’s an archive link to the New York Times giving more details.
So yeah, screw Musk but also screw whatever unholy state censorship is going on down in Brazil too.
The initial ruling was by a single judge but it was upheld yesterday by a panel of five supreme court justices:
Members of Brazil’s supreme court have unanimously voted to uphold the ban on X, after Elon Musk’s refusal to comply with local laws led to the social network being blocked in one of its biggest markets.
They didn’t approve the “Initial Ruling”. They approved the amended version that didn’t bar Apple and Google from distributing VPN Software and didn’t create a 5 day deadline.
Do you know WHY Xitter doesn’t just appoint a legal representative and sidestep this mess? It’s because this same Judge threatened to imprison the last one and pre-emptively froze her bank accounts!
https://time.com/7016537/brazil-blocks-elon-musk-x-twitter-company-refuses-comply-judge/
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y3rnl5qv3o
This is not how a legal system is supposed to behave.
Can you share where you saw “threatening to arrest and froze bank account”? Twitter made a post on their own page about something along the line. Other than that I couldn’t find any.
The resignation of the legal representative has more nuance than what you said here. His (not her) name is Diego de Lima Gualda, an attorney in Brazil. After a series of non compliance from Twitter, the Twitter Brazil filed a request arguing that the Twitter international is responsible for compliance and Twitter Brazil does not have authority. The judge dismissed this request for obvious reasons, and the next day he resigned from the position.
The non compliance led to resignation. This is crucial because the actions of Twitter are the reason why the legal representative faced the consequences. Not that the judge ordered something out of the blue. I think you are missing the key point here.
Obviously censorship is bad. There is no contention in that. My point is this order is the last one in the long standing feud between Musk and Moraes. Musk has been so aggressive in personally attacking the judge. So portraying the judge as someone going on a power trip is not the accurate picture.
Edit: Adding more info here. The entire information on the freezing bank account and arrest of the legal representative of Twitter Brazil, is from the Twitter Global Affairs handle. They published a “secret order” from the judge. A few things I noticed are these looks like cherry picked pages of a bigger document due to lack of continuity between page 1 and 2. Usually court orders will include the full context of the petition. Second point is the obvious circumventing strategy the Global Affairs of Twitter also states. They reiterate that only “Twitter International” is responsible for compliance, and not “Twitter Brazil”. This absurd argument introduces the problem of jurisdiction. This is just Twitter trying to fly above the law.
Earlier I said the legal representative was Diego de Lima Gualda, after his resignation they informed that Rachel de Oliveira Vila Nova Conceição will be the new representative. The order says:
indicates that the representative of the company X BRASIL INTERNET LTDA., RACHEL DE OLIVEIRA VILLA NOVA CONCEIÇÃO, acting in bad faith, is trying to avoid the regular notification of the decision handed down in the proceedings, including by electronic means, of which she has already demonstrated knowledge, with the aim of frustrating its compliance.
Therefore, given the negative ruling of the summons and the reported impossibility of contacting the legal representative of the aforementioned company, I DETERMINE THAT the lawyers legally appointed by X BRASIL INTERNET LTDA. be IMMEDIATELY INTIMATED, including electronic means, so that they adopt the necessary measures to comply with the order, within 24 (twenty-four) hours, under penalty of:
(1) DAILY FINE OF R$20,000.00 (twenty thousand reais) to company administrator, RACHEL DE OLIVEIRA VILLA NOVA CONCEIÇÃO (CPF 255.747.418-57), CUMULATIVE THAT IMPOSED ON THE COMPANY, as well as DECREE OF PRISON for disobeying a court order;
I think these words are self explanatory. Twitter tried to delay the compliance just by making the legal representative unreachable. This along with the argument that Twitter Brazil is not responsible shows a clearer picture of what Twitter was trying to do and what actually happened. Again I don’t see where the “bank account freezing” is written.
Edit 2: I forgot to state the obvious. The representative who resigned is not the one who faced fines or “decree of prison”. These are two different representatives. Again the representative is facing this because of the actions of Twitter. This is not a case of judicial activism.
Did you know that one single Judge has been given the power the censor the Internet? Do you know that no justification needs to be released to the public about WHY a person, account, or post is being censored, removed, or banned?
Replace judge with CEO and ask the question again.
Replace judge with CEO and ask the question again.
The CEO can’t threaten to throw you in prison and freeze your bank accounts, two things that this Judge did. That’s why Xitter doesn’t have a Legal Representative in the country anymore. The last one resigned after being threatened by the Judge and Xitter won’t appointment a new one because of that.
But sure, a CEO has exactly the same power as a Supreme Court Justice. Literally no difference at all.
A. There’s an appeals process.
B. If we accept a Chinese version of Google then there’s no reason we can’t accept a Brazilian version of X.
Musk could have blocked those accounts from being visible in Brazil and then had his legal representative argue that’s compliance. That would put the ball back in Brazil’s court. Instead Tony Stark wannabe is trying to just go around the government, violating it’s sovereignty. Something most countries take pretty poorly.
So we actually don’t know if Brazil would have required X to ban them globally. Nobody tested that.
B. If we accept a Chinese version of Google then there’s no reason we can’t accept a Brazilian version of X.
You understand Google is banned in China because they wouldn’t accept censure right?
You know that Twitter isn’t banned in Turkiye and India because they complied with their requests for censure, since you know, those are right wing governments run by strong men that the Apartheid beby likes? Funny how free speech becomes the issue just when the requests come from governments whose ideology don’t align with this particular clown’s. GTFO with the free speech posturing, if you’re defending the free speech of a platform where it’s fine to harass trans people but you’re banned if you correctly call someone cis gendered. Free speech my ass, Twitter is a right wing cess pool, not a beacon of free discourse.
You understand Google is banned in China because they wouldn’t accept censure right?
You understand that when people complain about that they argue that the law is bad, they don’t argue that Google should be allowed to ignore the law and keep operating anyway.
Sigh. I don’t know why I keep tilting at this windmill but…
A. There’s an appeals process.
The Brazilian Government has never released the details on who they asked Xitter to ban nor why they were banned. They also gagged Xitter so they couldn’t tell anyone either. So what good is an appeals process if you you can’t use it because you don’t know you’ve been banned?
Now Xitter TRIED to use it but…
Musk could have blocked those accounts from being visible in Brazil and then had his legal representative argue that’s compliance.
What you are suggesting is pretty much what Xitter did.
Notice that part about “threatened to arrest our employees”? That’s why Xitter doesn’t have the required “Legal Representative”. This Judge threatened to imprison the last one and pre-emptively froze their bank accounts. This is also why Xitter closed their office in Brazil.
There’s a LOT more going on here than “Elon Bad” but it can’t be discussed because of the volume of utter nonces who incapable of handling nuance.
Don’t speak out against the mob on here, it’s honestly worse than Reddit. “Censorship of political opponents is bad actually” is an unpopular take on here
Its impossible to step outside of the pure hatred. If you arent saying conservatives need to die then you get downvoted.
No room for discussion. Its a bunch of kids and bots on here i think.
No room for discussion
If you arent saying conservatives need to die
Well you sure sound like you’re leaving plenty of room for discussion.
Actual discussion of the post: -1 score
Stupid play on words comment disparaging the right: highest score in comment section
Wish we could see how legitimate upvotes and downvotes are or if lemmy is a lot of teenagers who dont have the patience.
Im uneducated on the politics of brazil. I think censoring might be conducted without a fully evil intent, but people’s ability to reason about validity of information should be fostered instead of disallowing certain speech. Scary to think you’d be arrested for using a social media site. Thats not okay. And its brazils decisions regardless of musk.
Disinformation should be downvoted. Then corrected.
For example, you said you could be arrested for using a social media site. There’s nothing in that decision that implies this.
I guess im not sure what happens if you dont pay a fine. Probably getting arrested right? Because the fine is like 7.5k a day.
Scary to think you’d be arrested for using a social media site.
Scary to think conservatives have power anywhere on planet earth, given how they just make random shit up and then accuse people of that made up bullshit whenever they want. Scary to think how conservatism is the single biggest threat to humanity and should be eradicated. Scary to think.
Have you heard of the research showing conservativism is highly associated with Big Five personality traits (which are considered mostly immutable)?
I hope you understand the implications of that finding when paired with a statement like:
conservatism is the single biggest threat to humanity and should be eradicated
Sorry are you memeing or did you want to talk about something? What are you suggesting be done?
