Telegram deletes message against Brazil’s Bill after Supreme Court threat

https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/brazil/telegram-deletes-message-against-fake-news-censorship-bill-after-supreme-court-threat/

by matheusmoreira • 3 years ago

80 77 3 years ago

riotimesonline.com

matheusmoreira19• 3 years ago

Telegram itself sent a message to all its brazilian users speaking out against the censorship law they're trying to pass. Government and supreme court ordered Telegram to delete it and to retract their words or face a 72 hour nation wide block and $100k per hour fines. They also ordered Telegram representatives to testify before federal police.

They were forced to send a new message to users saying "the previous message was flagrant and illicit disinformation against national congress, the judiciary, the state and brazilian democracy" because it "fraudulently distorted the discussion and debate" in an attempt to "induce users to coerce their representatives".

The "talk to your representatives" calls to action I usually see here on HN in discussions of US political matters? That's coercion now. They're making users coerce their representatives, apparently.

crop_rotation8• 3 years ago

This seems like democracy is dead in Brazil. If the brazilian court has such perfect monopoly on truth and can decide that much, why bother holding elections at that point. Since in any election most parties are saying different things, the court can just ban all the others for misinformation and give power to the party they agree with. Better yet, they can rename themselves "King's Council" and take one of theirs as King, since truth is already known and rest is "illicit disinformation"

matheusmoreira19• 3 years ago

This seems like democracy is dead in Brazil.

I agree completely and I've said that here on HN many times even despite downvotes. The censorship here began with last year's elections and has only been ramping up since then. The government wants what it wants and it will corrupt, destroy or silence anyone who opposes them. We're living under some sort of quasi-communist judiciary dictatorship. It sickens me to my soul to hear the word "democracy" come out of these people's mouths. Even North Korea calls itself a democracy...

the court can just ban all the others for misinformation and give power to the party they agree with

That's exactly what they're doing. They've removed from office and made ineligible politicians over "disinformation". They accuse their opponents of the crime of "fake news" and then deplatform them. These all powerful judges who never received a single vote and are aligned with the ruling party.

I wonder if one of these days dang's gonna get a message from these fucking people because of my posts.

slaw3• 3 years ago

Democracy doesn't equal liberty. Current government was democratically elected, so Brazil still has democracy, it is just a totalitarian democracy.

tpxl• 3 years ago

A non-Brazilian company is meddling in Brazilian elections. This is exactly what happened when Russians meddled with the US elections.

whythre• 3 years ago

Pffft, what? No it isn’t. What a ludicrous thing to say.

Telegram may not be some shining paragon of freedom, but it seems pretty obvious that Brazil (like many other nations) is shifting towards naked despotism.

matheusmoreira19• 3 years ago

No.

If Telegram was a social media company with algorithmic content recommendation systems, you could argue it was penalizing one side in favor of the other one. If that was the case I'd agree with you but it's not the case. Telegram is a messaging app, like signal and whatsapp. Its users are the ones doing the influencing, not the company itself.

The election is already over anyway. This episode is just Lula and his people making good on his campaign promise to "regulate" the internet by censoring it.

themitigating• 3 years ago

Openly making statements is different than subversive methods of manipulation. Telegram wasn't lying either, it's just an opinion

asdkjlfkasjdf• 3 years ago

this law has less teeth than the digital millennium act, which the US had for decades.

it's only for group chats. and only for things that are already illegal (racism, etc) and fake news such as defined (openly and publicly) by the courts, on a case by case.

goal is to prevent another January 8th (Brazil's January 6th).

...and what is this newspaper about?!? their front page reads "Opinion: Tucker Carlson is about to revolutionize world journalism By Daniel Lopez (Opinion)".... weird content for "rio".

crop_rotation8• 3 years ago

The law is irrelevant compared to the bigger picture. If courts can force people/organizations to not advocate against laws, what is the point of elections and democracy. Why not just have a King? If everything is known to the great Court, why put up with the charade of democracy, since the new President might be full of "disinformation".

matheusmoreira19• 3 years ago

If everything is known to the great Court

The great court isn't even made up of actual judges, by the way.

In Brazil, actual judges are selected by rigorous testing of law knowledge in a process known as concurso which roughly means contest. It's extremely competitive, applicants tend to be disciplined people who study many hours every day. People generally don't make it to a judge position without knowing their shit.

Supreme court judges aren't like that. They're just people appointed by politicians. The censorship-friendly judge who's ordering words into Telegram's mouth? He used to be the lawyer of one of Brazil's biggest drug trafficking gangs, PCC. Incidentally, that criminal organization supported the current president in last year's elections and was involved in a plot to torture and assassinate the judge who imprisoned him for corruption earlier this year. Supreme court ordered most of them released while many Brasília protesters are locked up to this day. It's surreal.

matheusmoreira19• 3 years ago

and fake news such as defined (openly and publicly) by the courts, on a case by case

And you see no problem with that? You see no problem at all with these judges essentially declaring anything they don't believe in to be a crime?

Besides, this law is mostly irrelevant. It's serving only to make it painfully obvious to all brazilians and the whole world how far gone this country is. This law is merely an attempt to legitimize what the judge-kings are already doing ever since last year's elections. Censorship is already unconstitutional and they don't give a shit. What's a little law to people who get away with unconstitutional acts? It's nothing... If this bill doesn't pass, they can just enforce it as if it had passed. They're the supreme court. No one's above them. The law is whatever they write in a document because police does what the document says.

goal is to prevent another January 8th (Brazil's January 6th).

Protests shouldn't be "prevented". People have occupied Brasília before and no one spoke of "preventing" anything back then. Even Brazil's communist parties spoke out against the government's framing of the protesters as terrorists because it will obviously come back to bite them in the future. It's likely that the acts of vandalism were a false flag operation anyway since there's leaked security camera footage showing Lula's people assisting the vandals.

and what is this newspaper about?

I apologize for that. I wanted to post a better one but this was the only english language source I found covering this bit of news at this point in time.

DoctorDabadedoo2• 3 years ago

You see no problem in companies letting people use their platform indiscriminately to coordinate school shootings, riots and extremist groups?

Protests shouldn't be "prevented".

Are nazi rallies or KKK gatherings categorized as "protests"? The people you mention, a minority, spent 3 months rallied across the country asking for military intervention, the opposition to be arrested or killed with nothing more than hopes and dreams because their candidate lost.

camera footage showing Lula's people assisting the vandals

I'll bite. Where is the source?

doodlesdev2• 3 years ago

The craziest thing is it's working. I live in Brazil (unfortunately, I guess) and yet the only place I even see discussion about this is on Hacker News of all places. The Telegram block is pretty good tech-wise, it's not just DNS-level like some other countries do, to circumvent it you _have_ to use a proxy.

It's also crazy this is happening almost at the same time the US has the EARN IT act back. The west has some serious threats to digital freedom right now, and the solution (for now) is not more technology, it's protest and democracy (if that's even a thing nowadays).

Anyway, it's a good time to teach friends and family how to use tor, VPNs, Fediverse, maybe even crypto (if your currency completely collapsing is possible).

We, as an industry, should have from the start built the internet to be decentralized, secure, private, by default. It's too late for that now, the boat has sailed, but there's still time to prevent it from getting even worse.

Oh yeah, and if you're reading this from anywhere in the world where this kind of thing is not a worry right now, please consider:

https://snowflake.torproject.org/

https://support.torproject.org/

matheusmoreira19• 3 years ago

the only place I even see discussion about this is on Hacker News of all places

This is all over the news and social media but it's impossible to discuss anything in those spaces. Even here on HN people created sockpuppet accounts to call me out. Not even kidding.

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=forabolsonaro

I wonder if they understand the fact such pseudonymous fake accounts will literally become a crime if this law passes.

lobocinza3• 3 years ago

Even here on HN people created sockpuppet accounts to call me out.

Lots of political and financial interests behind it. For them it's existential as they can't survive in a free and decentralized space even with paid content and bots.

tomohawk• 3 years ago

This is the effect of the censorship-industrial complex:

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/censorship-industrial-co...

traveler01• 3 years ago

Well, that's what happen when you get the extreme-left to run your country.

prionassembly• 3 years ago

The interesting tidbit here is that congresspeople, both leaders and small fry types, were parroting a line that went "if we don't pass this censorship law, the Supreme Court is going ahead and dropping an even bigger hammer".

The Supreme Court kneecapped Lula in the late 00s and early 10s, arrested his lead cadres and led to his party's decay -- until Lula himself was arrested. They did this by importing theories by German theorists that were never part of our law intellectual traditions, let alone our laws. Then in the late 10s they started arresting bloggers for insulting the Court -- directly, taking on police powers. Now they're with Lula, and further expanding their sweeping powers. I'm scared to even post this. I mean, much of Congress is scared -- they've got people there by the balls.

matheusmoreira19• 3 years ago

They're judge kings and they're running the country. Whatever whims they write on documents is law because police obeys. I'm very scared too. My own family has told me to my face to stop posting online because they fear I could get arrested. I still can't get over how fucked up that is.

frozenlettuce2• 3 years ago

A Brazilian's day only truly begins after some bread and 2 full cups of judiciary down the throat

zquzra• 3 years ago

Where's the bill so I can read it? I don't want to form an opinion based on "riotimesonline" and gossip.

harrisoned• 3 years ago

Here is the complete bill, it's last version.

https://www.camara.leg.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra...

But probably, a new version will be approved, that hasn't been released officially. You can check it's status here: https://www.camara.leg.br/propostas-legislativas/2256735

matheusmoreira19• 3 years ago

I apologize for that news source. I used it because it was the only website covering this bit of news at the time of submission. Perhaps there are better sources now.

ezconnect2• 3 years ago

The big technical question here is why are we not moving to a decentralize messaging system that can't be controlled by government.

tarruda• 3 years ago

Do you have an example of easily installable apps that provide decentralized messaging?

doodlesdev2• 3 years ago

Session: https://getsession.org/

Briar: https://briarproject.org/

Jami: https://jami.net/

matheusmoreira19• 3 years ago

Technological solutions depend on the government having some kind of limit to their tyranny. Brazil at least has proved to have exactly zero limits. Same judge involved in this Telegram case recently ordered a politician to reveal the password to his phone -- ordered him to literally provide evidence against himself -- and came just short of holding him in contempt of court when the password failed to decrypt the phone. I assume the cryptanalysis by intimidation worked.

cca778• 3 years ago

A lot of opportunists in Brazil want the Internet to be a place for against-the-law speechs. It is not censorship if a court rules a social media company to delete pages/messages/whatever that violates any law.

Telegram and Google, as companies, published misinformation. They did not publish their opinions or provide alternatives. They misrepresented the current law project.

You are free to publish your opinion on a movie, your code, your own selfie. You are not free to publish bullying content, fake content, or anything that harms others.

Vox_Leone• 3 years ago

There is a good partial solution in the ordinary law: it is enough to strengthen the codes of ethics while regulating the presence and expression in the networks of politicians with a mandate.

Freedom of expression does not necessarily include the right to have your opinion amplified by powerful artificial means. Just as your right of self-defense does not include the use of nuclear weapons.

The principle of freedom of expression is about the right to say what you want at the top of your lungs. Radical political leaders with an open channel to their followers are the problem. With audacity and political will it is possible to tame them.

crop_rotation8• 3 years ago

You make the wrong assumption that the truth on every issue is widely known and universally accepted.

They misrepresented the current law project.

If criticising an ongoing bill is not allowed, how is it different from the USSR? If everyone has to agree to the government policy without exception, why do you need elections for? You can just let the Politburo (I mean the Great Supreme Court of Brazil) decide everything.

lobocinza3• 3 years ago

Telegram and Google, as companies, published misinformation.

They didn't.

You are free to publish your opinion on a movie, your code, your own selfie. You are not free to publish bullying content, fake content, or anything that harms others.

You're misrepresenting the current law project. Have you read it least? The 1st big problem is who will have the say in what is/isn't fake? The people backing this bill often spread lies and have zero commitment to truth and honesty. Fake news is everything that is inconvenient. Clearly, they have no issues with fake news when it supports them.

There is no place for a ministry of truth in a democratic system. I don't want my country to follow the Chinese example.

It is not censorship if a court rules a social media company to delete pages/messages/whatever that violates any law.

What is being removed didn't violate any laws. Opinion and free speech is a constitutional and international right. The court orders were nonsensical and legal only because they came from the supreme court which is above everyone else so they can interpret things as they wish.

It's insane to have a supreme court overruling the legislative and the executive branches in a weekly basis. The supreme court actions are undemocratic and create dangerous precedents. It's slowly becoming a judicial dictatorship. Even elected representatives are afraid of them.

e12e• 3 years ago

Non-paywalled (Different/AFP) source:

https://www.macaubusiness.com/brazil-court-makes-telegram-sc...

lrvick• 3 years ago

Most communication is seen as dangerous by someone, and thus all communication done on centralized platforms that can be censored or monitored eventually will be.

Signal, Telegram, Whatsapp, and all the other centralized "secure chat" communications services are fundamentally the same when you zoom out a bit.

Free uncensored communication is more important than caving to friends demands. Use and promote decentralized communication solutions if you believe in democracy and free speech.

NoFakeNews• 3 years ago

You all bite smth too fast. I live in Brazil, am a lawyer, work with technology and could not be happier the country is working towards a legislation that fights fake news spread and hate groups.

Hate and fake are NOT free speech.

Come on guys and girls - read beyond headlines

richbell• 3 years ago

Who decides what is "fake news" or "hate speech"? In Canada there is a very real scandal involving our Prime Minister accepting money under the table from China, as well as him knowing about foreign interference in our elections and doing nothing.

According to him it's all anti-Chinese racism and hate speech.

crop_rotation8• 3 years ago

Yes, everyone needs a "Ministry of Truth". Finally the great works of political scientist George Orwell are being appreciated and adopted by governments.

matheusmoreira19• 3 years ago

Do you realize that this law makes fake sockpuppet accounts such as yours illegal?

rektide• 3 years ago

Come on guys and girls - read beyond headlines

Once your perfect world comes, hour old account, we won't have to read beyond the headlines, will we? The government will decide what is true or not & will keep us safe from any potentially fake news.

lobocinza3• 3 years ago

It would be funny if it wasn't sad and scary. Those supporting this bill are doing everything the bill was supposed to be against.

elforce002• 3 years ago

Well, be careful what you wish for.

mktk1001• 3 years ago

With people like you no wonder why we have so many totalitarian leaders around the world.

crop_rotation8• 3 years ago

It is so sad to see many people defending laws against fake speech. Do you all really want a "Ministry of Truth". Do you want the Government to decide what is true unilaterally, and block everything else as "illicit misinformation". How is this different from the USSR? By this logic the Stasi was just punishing people who spread "disinformation".

How do you contest an election in such an environment, if criticising government policy means "spreading disinformation". Telegram opposed a bill and they were forced to share the below message to their users:

"By determination of the STF, the company Telegram communicates: The previous message from Telegram characterized FLAGRANT and ILLEGAL DISINFORMATION offensive to the National Congress, the Judiciary, the Rule of Law and the Brazilian Democracy, because it fraudulently distorted the discussion and debates on the regulation of social network providers and private messaging services (Bill 2630), in an attempt to induce and instigate users to coerce parliamentarians"

kornhole• 3 years ago

The same gagging is happening to all the internet media companies in Brazil including Google and Meta, but we are not hearing about it because we are not allowed to hear about it except through side channels like this. Glen covered it in the later part of this episode.https://rumble.com/v2looka-system-update-79.html

New Law Sought by Brazil's Lula to Ban and Punish ‘Fake News’ And ‘Disinformation’ Threatens The Free Internet Everywhere. Many Nations seem poised to abandon the core lesson of the Enlightenment: no human institution can or should be trusted to decree Absolute Truth and punish dissent from it. (G. Greenwald. Feb. 25, 2023)

frozenlettuce2• 3 years ago

Another related interesting news: A Whatsapp board member has joined the current government in Brazil https://www1-folha-uol-com-br.translate.goog/mercado/2023/05.... At least for me, this raises serious questions about Whatsapp integrity - why would it have such a close relationship white a government that is walking towards a totalitarian path and censoring competitors left and right? My guess is that it is much more prone to comply with government requests than the others

matheusmoreira19• 3 years ago

Yeah, I'm starting to have doubts about WhatsApp's integrity too. Thanks for bringing this up.

Telegram deletes message against Brazil’s Bill after Supreme Court threat

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