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Brazil’s supreme court upholds ban on Elon Musk’s X over ‘illegal conduct’ (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 months ago by breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

On Monday, five of the court’s justices were asked to consider Friday’s decision to temporarily banish X from Brazil, where the platform has more than 21 million users. By lunchtime all five had voted in favour of the ban.

Casting his vote in favour of X’s continued suspension, Flávio Dino said the company’s decision to “deliberately” ignore a court order to name a legal representative in Brazil suggested it “considered itself above the rule of law”.

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 91 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Refusal to comply with local laws suggests social media company ‘considered itself above the rule of law’

Seems like a correct observation to me.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 26 points 2 months ago

It's almost as if companies are used to do whatever the fuck they want and the moment there's pushback you have pissing, screaming and gnashing of teeth.

[–] splonglo@lemmy.world 75 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The really funny thing here is that Elon's Twitter has openly complied with censorship orders from Hungary already. The free speech stuff is fake. Twitter does overt political censorship on request.

[–] mint_tamas@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Hungarian twitter community is very small, I’d be surprised if it were a censorship target. Do you have a source on this?

[–] splonglo@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My bad, it was Turkey, not Hungary.

[–] mint_tamas@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Gotcha

[–] Sundial@lemm.ee 34 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Even if it somehow gets reinstated, the damage is done. Majority have already left for alternatives.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago

The funny thing is, the right in America are trying to push laws that make the company responisible for user posted content.

If that happens, and I go to twitter and post something illegal, I'M still liable for breaking the laws, but now so is twitter.

So eventually, if he tries to be above the law in America, SOMEBODY is going to post child porn. Then, by their own laws, twitter is liable for that illegal action.

This is going to lead to one of two things. Either

Twitter shuts down

Musk goes to jail.

Aw hell.....who am I kidding? It's going to be "Well, he's one of us. It's a big club, and you ain't in it".

He'll pay a 2 million dollar fine, which is peanuts to him, and this shitty world will keep on going.

[–] Virkkunen@fedia.io -2 points 2 months ago

They're Brazilians mate, even if the ban gets lifted in 10 years and xitter is somehow around, Brazilians will immediately flock back to it. They have unconditional love for their social media

[+] Monomate@lemm.ee -21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Are we seeing the same thing? I've never seen as much activity from Brazilian users on X as now.

I guess all this block did was teach the Brazilian population how to use VPNs. And most are just ignoring the threat of a US$ 8.900,00 daily fine from the dictator because, by its very nature, VPNs keep them anonymous. X is on bad terms with the dictator, so it will not expose anyone's IP addresses even if requested by him. None of the major VPN companies are based in Brazil, and it would be hard to ask them for IP addresses too.

Even some major news outlets are still posting on X, saying that they're posting through "international staff members." Some politicians and notable personalities are starting to use the same excuse: "someone out of the country is posting for me." This block is looking pretty ineffective, and it's serving as an educational incentive for people to start using VPNs. If any more social media platforms are also blocked, people are already well prepared to circumvent the blocks.

So, what has the dictator gained from this temper tantrum? He forced X out of the country, leaving no local offices to receive his orders, even the reasonable ones like those related to normal (non-political persecution) crimes. And he strengthened the protests that were already scheduled for September 7th (Brazil Independence Day), which will turn into an event mainly asking for his impeachment.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I guess all this block did was teach the Brazilian population how to use VPNs.

ISPs have a period to comply with the order. Mine still hasn't blocked the shitshow.

[–] Monomate@lemm.ee -5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

ISPs shall block, X users shall use VPN to circumvent.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I doubt the average twitter user gives a semblance of a shit.

[+] Monomate@lemm.ee -10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

When a X user finds himself unable to load X's main page or the app, he will be motivated to investagate why, and finally he'll find out VPNs are the solution. X's brazilian users were already discussing and suggesting VPNs to each other on the days leading up to the block. And the block is not 100% yet: smaller ISPs are taking longer to set up the block.

[–] deus@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I doubt most people will go this route. VPNs cost money, Twitter alternatives are free.

[–] Zron@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You mean: when an X user finds themselves unable to load the main page, they’ll get frustrated, uninstall the app and leave a review about how it’s broken.

You grossly overestimate the tech savvyness of your average internet user, and their willingness to spend any amount of time or money to fix a minor inconvenience.

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 months ago

Twitter users aren't smart enough to figure out how to use VPNs

[–] towerful@programming.dev 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The judge that banned X also stated a fine of 10k for anyone using a VPN to circumvent the ban.
Difficult to police and enforce, but it's been made clear that accessing X is considered illegal

[–] Monomate@lemm.ee 0 points 2 months ago

In other words: the judge issued an order that affects everyone, not only the parties involved in the judicial process, and without the need for each affected individual to be formally notified so he/she can know how to avoid being fined. So, he basically legislated by himself. No wonder people are saying he's a dictator.

[–] Virkkunen@fedia.io 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Tell me you support Bolsonaro and Musk without telling me you support them

[+] Monomate@lemm.ee -10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Actually, Bolsonaro is a fraud. He only acts in the self-interest of himself and his immediate family members. As he's being threatened by the dictator, with some speculation that he could be arrested at any time, he's keeping silent during this whole X blocking incident so he doesn't suffer retaliation from the dictator.

As for Musk, I know that, like every businessman, he has his financial interests. I surely would if I were one, and I would not blame anyone for doing the same, as nobody gets rich spending money unwisely. However, I can recognize that his passion for free speech is genuine; otherwise, he wouldn't have bought Twitter for $44 billion. Under the most reasonable analysis, this was a bad deal in terms of return on investment. Maybe it'll bear fruit in the long term, but it's a big, nebulous maybe. So as he decided to buy it anyway, he surely did so on principle, not for money.

[–] Virkkunen@fedia.io 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"Musk [...] passion for free speech is genuine"

As long as it lines up with the right wing agenda, otherwise it's woke bullshit that needs to be censored and banned, right?

Delusional, both of you.

[–] Monomate@lemm.ee -2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Before Elon acquired Twitter, the platform enforced an one-sided policy of censoring right-wing points of view. It even started actively shielding the left from any criticism, such as when the Hunter Biden Laptop story was blatantly censored so as to not affect Joe Biden's presidential campaign negatively.

Now, he lets both sides of the political spectrum participate in the debate without censorship. Are you trying to say things got worse because of this?

[–] Breve@pawb.social 3 points 2 months ago

Before Elon acquired Twitter, the platform enforced an one-sided policy of censoring right-wing points of view. It even started actively shielding the left from any criticism, such as when the Hunter Biden Laptop story was blatantly censored so as to not affect Joe Biden's presidential campaign negatively.

What's funny is that there are a slew of articles from 2019 to 2022, before Musk's takeover, talking about a study that found Twitter's algorithm actually had a right wing bias because conservative opinions generated higher engagement (both positive and negative) so it boosted them more than liberal ones.

Also Elon has censored many news stories about himself and his companies since his acquisition. He hasn't stopped censorship, he merely took control of it.

A handful of citations:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59011271

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/01/facebook-youtube-twitter-anti-conservative-claims-baseless-report-finds

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/02/01/censorship-conservatives-trump-facebook-twitter-youtube/4316155001/

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors-turkey-election-erdogan

https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-journalists-free-speech-mashable-matt-binder

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/journalists-who-wrote-about-owner-elon-musk-suspended-from-twitter

[–] 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 7 points 2 months ago

However, I can recognize that his passion for free speech is genuine; otherwise, he wouldn't have bought Twitter for $44

You really make recoil in disgust at the depths of denial you can plunge to in order to stan a billionaire.

[–] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not gonna lie my inner child would be delighted to see Brazil shooting down Starlink satellites.

[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

they don't need to, they just need to seize the ground PoPs and block ips to make it unusably slow.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 5 points 2 months ago

I thought StarLink had inter-satelite laser links? Theoretically it should be faster than a VPN out of the country because light travels faster in a vacuum. But maybe this was another one of Elon's "full self driving next year!" features.

[+] dsilverz@thelemmy.club -20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

There is absolutely no saint in this whole story. Musk is a billionaire trying to play god, while the supreme court is also trying to play god. Both consider themselves "above the rule of law", while an entire population (composed of 200 million people) is divided between "Musk is right, let's impeach Moraes" and "Moraes is right, let's jail Musk". There's no good or evil here, for me, it's the grand-old classic Divide et impera. It's so obvious!

The good side of all this is that people are slowly learning about decentralized platforms, getting a little closer to tech-savvy. People are discovering fediverse, even if it's through a not-so-good fediverse instance (Threads from Meta, or Bluesky). When people really literate themselves about the decentralization, it'll be harder for both state bureaucracies as well as for corporations. The mastodon in the room which neither corps nor govs want to talk about (pun intented).

[–] lorty@lemmy.ml 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Musk literally refused to comply to the supreme court of Brazil. How the heck are they in the wrong for blocking X?

[–] tortina_original@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oh dear, "both sides are the same", amirite?