Brazil Bans X (Twitter)

[STORMS]

People also ask:
Is Brazil shutting down Twitter?
X, formerly Twitter, has been banned in Brazil after failing to meet a deadline set by a Supreme Court judge to name a new legal representative in the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/world/americas/brazil-elon-musk-x-blocked.html

 

[kabelfritz]

good, more countries follow please. place is an amassment of 10000s of lunatics.

 

[Marinjuana]

Predictable outcome of a company not complying with a government's authoritarian censorship

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

Predictable outcome of a company not complying with a government's authoritarian censorship

Please kindly do your research before spewing nonsense like this.

Brazil has laws against spreading fakenews regarding politics/political figures - which is a GREAT thing when you consider the amount of dumb people who surf the internet.

Twitter/X was the #1 source of those fakenews spreadings, and unlike Instagram, has absolutely no policy to prevent/minimize that dissemination.

Alexandre de Moraes, Brazil's current Minister of the Supreme Court, asked Musk to do SOMETHING about the wildfires of fakenews.

Musk answered by throwing a tantrum and removing X's headquarters from Brazil.

In Brazil, since forever, as I remember, companies are also legally obligated to have a headquarters here to operate. You can't simply have no legal representation here and operate from overseas, for example. Thus, the Supreme Court set a deadline for Musk to reestablish a legal representative here, if he wished for his company to continue here.

Musk's answer was to post an A.I. generated photo of Alexandre de Moraes behind bars, saying "one day this image will be true".

I am no fan of politicians in Brazil (God knows how much these FUCKERS, both left and right wing, contribute to horrendous inequality in wages here) but this story has more to do with a man-child with delusions of power thinking he is above a country's sovereignity and less with some supposed censorship dictatorship.

 

[kabelfritz]

Predictable outcome of a company not complying with a government's authoritarian censorship

there is nothing authoritarian about this, just brazilian law at work.

and the ethical reasonings behind this law are for example:

• knowingly spreading misinformation is bad (dont even know how i would explain that deeper)
• content which is endangering the principle of free speech for everyone (like discrimination) cant be protected by free speech itself.

 

[Marinjuana]

Please kindly do your research before spewing nonsense like this.

Brazil has laws against spreading fakenews regarding politics/political figures - which is a GREAT thing when you consider the amount of dumb people who surf the internet.

Twitter/X was the #1 source of those fakenews spreadings, and unlike Instagram, has absolutely no policy to prevent/minimize that dissemination.

Alexandre de Moraes, Brazil's current Minister of the Supreme Court, asked Musk to do SOMETHING about the wildfires of fakenews.

Musk answered by throwing a tantrum and removing X's headquarters from Brazil.

In Brazil, since forever, as I remember, companies are also legally obligated to have a headquarters here to operate. You can't simply have no legal representation here and operate from overseas, for example. Thus, the Supreme Court set a deadline for Musk to reestablish a legal representative here, if he wished for his company to continue here.

Musk's answer was to post an A.I. generated photo of Alexandre de Moraes behind bars, saying "one day this image will be true".

I am no fan of politicians in Brazil (God knows how much these FUCKERS, both left and right wing, contribute to horrendous inequality in wages here) but this story has more to do with a man-child with delusions of power thinking he is above a country's sovereignity and less with some supposed censorship dictatorship.

So Brazil has laws criminalizing speech which legally requires social media companies to censor posts. What do I need to research?

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

So Brazil has laws criminalizing speech which legally requires social media companies to censor posts. What do I need to research?

What part of this is "authoritarian censorship"?The part where the speech is a fucking fabrication used criminally to create a false narrative having to be shut down for, dunno, public safety?

Let's say I am an influencer with millions of followers and randomly one day decide to post "Trump is planting a bomb on NYC's whole subway transit system!!! Get out now!! Start a riot on the streets and break something!!". Naturally, any person with half a brain will either immediatelly dismiss this as an insane lie, or do a 5 sec research proving it to not be true. However, a not-insignificant part of those million followers will either actually take to the streets in a riot, or just retweet/parrot the post by the thousands, perhaps even adding their own little twist to it. In a short time, you now have lots of people repeating the same thing on a large scale, and more idiots are bound to believe it.

Furthermore, even if you don't agree with this - just as Brazilian law DOES NOT grant free speech to Nazis like the US does, and Germany DOES NOT permit Nazi symbols to be displayed anywhere (check Wolfenstein German release) - this is how the law is, and has been, for a long time here. Musk knew what he was doing, decided not only not to comply, but also make a clown of himself, and now is having the law applied to his company.

Edit: for further clarification - not a single post is being censored for saying "I hate Trump", "I disagree with Trump", "His policies are shit". It's the "Trump is doing [terrorist attack/eating babies/has a secret stolen stash of public money]

 

[Law Hero]

Time for Brazilians to get VPNs.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Paulo Costa, Brazilian UFC fighter infamous for his twitter posts is enjoying his last hurrah. A UFC fighter calling Mark Ruffalo (annoying Twitter warrior) the f word (somehow he’s dodged bans for years), what a time to be alive.

Feel bad for the Brazilians who follow twitter as a gaming / FGC resource.

 

[Tony at Home]

Right now, X is claiming that the judge threatened X's legal representative with arrest. X's legal rep resigned so her job did not get her arrested. X isn't re-appointing a new legal rep because they don't want to throw anyone else to that fire. Because X has no legal rep in Brazil they're 100% at the mercy of the judge.

If that claim is true then Brazil's legal system is probably 100% in the wrong here. We don't even need to go into the details of whether Brazil's law for social media is reasonable, or more importantly if it's being applied consistently and they're not just bullying X.

 

[Marinjuana]

What part of this is "authoritarian censorship"?The part where the speech is a fucking fabrication used criminally to create a false narrative having to be shut down for, dunno, public safety?

Let's say I am an influencer with millions of followers and randomly one day decide to post "Trump is planting a bomb on NYC's whole subway transit system!!! Get out now!! Start a riot on the streets and break something!!". Naturally, any person with half a brain will either immediatelly dismiss this as an insane lie, or do a 5 sec research proving it to not be true. However, a not-insignificant part of those million followers will either actually take to the streets in a riot, or just retweet/parrot the post by the thousands, perhaps even adding their own little twist to it. In a short time, you now have lots of people repeating the same thing on a large scale, and more idiots are bound to believe it.

Furthermore, even if you don't agree with this - just as Brazilian law DOES NOT grant free speech to Nazis like the US does, and Germany DOES NOT permit Nazi symbols to be displayed anywhere (check Wolfenstein German release) - this is how the law is, and has been, for a long time here. Musk knew what he was doing, decided not only not to comply, but also make a clown of himself, and now is having the law applied to his company.

Edit: for further clarification - not a single post is being censored for saying "I hate Trump", "I disagree with Trump", "His policies are shit". It's the "Trump is doing [terrorist attack/eating babies/has a secret stolen stash of public money]

The part where the government (or just a particular judge apparently) orders social media accounts to be shut down and levies massive fines to companies and individuals who don't comply. The part where nobody in Brazil can use Twitter because they didn't comply with government demands.

Time for Brazilians to get VPNs.

Apparently they will attempt to fine anyone in Brazil the equivalent of $9000 US dollar for using VPN to access Twitter.

In most countries, you can just go on Twitter.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

The part where the government (or just a particular judge apparently) orders social media accounts to be shut down and levies massive fines to companies and individuals who don't comply. The part where nobody in Brazil can use Twitter because they didn't comply with government demands.




Apparently they will attempt to fine anyone in Brazil the equivalent of $9000 US dollar for using VPN to access Twitter.

In most countries, you can just go on Twitter.

You are deliberately omiting the part where people were actively using the platform to commit crimes and the part where the company was given ample chance to fix this problem and decided to do nothing.

If I create a website where people use it for all kinds of things, then suddenly some people start using it to distribute something illegal, like CP, and the government asks me to find a way to stop it, and I don't, the site goes down. Simple as that. A shame for people who weren't doing anything wrong that can no longer use the platform, but that's the law for you.

You can't release Wolfenstein in Germany with the Nazi flags. You either censor/change them, or you don't release the game. It sucks for people who wanted to play the game there, but oh well.

And BTW, the VPN fine thing is only going to be enforced on people who actually have a following to begin with. Say, again, an influencer, or celebrity, or whatever. Not a single percent of government efforts is going to be diverted to investigate if a random nobody actually uses a VPN to browse the site.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Right now, X is claiming that the judge threatened X's legal representative with arrest. X's legal rep resigned so her job did not get her arrested. X isn't re-appointing a new legal rep because they don't want to throw anyone else to that fire. Because X has no legal rep in Brazil they're 100% at the mercy of the judge.

If that claim is true then Brazil's legal system is probably 100% in the wrong here. We don't even need to go into the details of whether Brazil's law for social media is reasonable, or more importantly if it's being applied consistently and they're not just bullying X.

Absolute insanity if true.

It's honestly a pretty hard sell for the government to be the only entity that controls what people are allowed to see, or what they're allowed to say.

 

[Marinjuana]

You are deliberately omiting the part where people were actively using the platform to commit crimes and the part where the company was given ample chance to fix this problem and decided to do nothing.

If I create a website where people use it for all kinds of things, then suddenly some people start using it to distribute something illegal, like CP, and the government asks me to find a way to stop it, and I don't, the site goes down. Simple as that. A shame for people who weren't doing anything wrong that can no longer use the platform, but that's the law for you.

You can't release Wolfenstein in Germany with the Nazi flags. You either censor/change them, or you don't release the game. It sucks for people who wanted to play the game there, but oh well.

And BTW, the VPN fine thing is only going to be enforced on people who actually have a following to begin with. Say, again, an influencer, or celebrity, or whatever. Not a single percent of government efforts is going to be diverted to investigate if a random nobody actually uses a VPN to browse the site.

Are the crimes in question posting political posts on social media or sharing CP?

I'm criticizing Brazil's law and enforcement, not their desire to have laws.

That the VPN fines would be selectively enforced arguably makes it worse. The rule of law, but only sometimes when an official wants to nail somebody. And for what? Simply viewing a popular website? Not a good look Brazil.

Not that this is some injustice, but my favorite NFL football team is going to Brazil next week and none of the players or reporters there will be able do the usual tweets about it. They will all tweet when they get back. Silly stuff

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

Are the crimes in question posting political posts on social media or sharing CP?

I'm criticizing Brazil's law and enforcement, not their desire to have laws.

That the VPN fines would be selectively enforced arguably makes it worse. The rule of law, but only sometimes when an official wants to nail somebody. And for what? Simply viewing a popular website? Not a good look Brazil.

Not that this is some injustice, but my favorite NFL football team is going to Brazil next week and none of the players or reporters there will be able do the usual tweets about it. They will all tweet when they get back. Silly stuff

I understand your point. People are not getting shut down for posting political posts, that in and of itself is not a crime here. Spreading fake news about political things/people, saying things like "current/past political figure has lied stolen money from people" (IF they did not) is. I never cared for twitter so I don't really have a bone in the fight about the whole VPN thing.

Alexandre de Moraes has certainly been a polarizing figure in this thing, but from what I could gather, the timeline was as follows:

• Some influencer/celebrity/important figure was spreading fakenews about the current government, inciting attacks on the democratically elected current members of it on twitter.
• Moraes asked twitter to take the account down and cut its monetization.
• Twitter did nothing.
• Moraes then fined twitter until they took the account down.
• Twitter did nothing.
• Moraes then accused current Twitter representative in Brazil of acting in bad faith, threatening to arrest them if nothing was done. (Just to be crystal clear, I don't agree this was the right course of action AT ALL).
• Nothing was done. Twitter representative stepped down from their job.
• Twitter then removed their headquarters from Brazil.
• Moraes then sanctioned twitter itself to be shut down in Brazil, since you can't act in national territory without having a headquarters here.