Brazil top court threatens to suspend X within 24 hours

https://apnews.com/article/brazil-top-court-elon-musk-de-moraes-028f7a9f65e3bf355518bbe9d1fbe564

by davikr • 2 years ago

106 107 2 years ago

hexage1814• 2 years ago

I truly hope Musk doesn't cave and the court blocks the site.

Maybe this way more people will wake up to all the abuses, violations and honestly, crimes, happening in the country, committed by the Brazilian Supreme Court.

wewtyflakes3• 2 years ago

If you had ended that with "Twitter" (or "X"), rather than "Brazilian Supreme Court", the comment would have read just as credibly.

chihwei5• 2 years ago

So what crime did X commit to? Or it refused to censor your opponent and made you angry?

GolfPopper2• 2 years ago

Agreed. If someone wanted to find a bloody shirt to wave to bring attention to real abuses, Elon Musk's failing $44 billion-dollar tantrum is probably among the least sympathetic victims imaginable.

raxxorraxor3• 2 years ago

Having content on their site that you might not like isn't really comparable. It is sensible to be suspicious of Musk perhaps, but the current hatred of him is as disconcerting as the former glorification.

I think one could expect a bit of self-reflection to not have states shut down online spaces. And that is true for those that I do not personally like as well.

jcranmer2• 2 years ago

Given that, under Musk, Twitter has caved into such governments as Turkey and India when presented with a censor-or-quit ultimatum, one would think the historical precedent of what Twitter will do is clear.

Unless Musk's principle is really that one needs to bow down to right-wing attempts to censor speech, and a left-wing attempt to censor speech must be resisted at all costs.

(Either way, Musk's adherence to the principle of standing up for free speech universally is very poor, and I truly marvel at anyone who believes him to be a defender of free speech.)

energy123• 2 years ago

He caves to requests from autocrats and fights requests from independent judiciaries in liberal democracies. That's the more salient dividing line than right vs left.

scarab92• 2 years ago

The Brazilian court’s order isn’t comparable to the court orders from Turkey and India.

The Brazilian court ordered global removal, rather than just to have the content hidden within its jurisdiction.

raxxorraxor3• 2 years ago

Having to cave to countries pushing for more and more content control is what their predecessors made possible. And it isn't just Turkey or India, it is the US and parts of Europe too.

For years there were arguments that a private platform could censor what they like. I guess some people are just ignoring the repercussions.

blackeyeblitzar6• 2 years ago

This is a false narrative. Twitter has said they’ll abide by local laws. In Turkey and India, they did. In Brazil, they’ve made the claim formally that unilateral secret censorship orders from one justice are not legal per Brazil’s own constitution, and so they cannot comply.

You’re using this false equivalence to attack Musk and Twitter as unprincipled when they’re actually being principled.

matheusmoreira8• 2 years ago

I wish, friend. Even here on HN brazilians will come and gaslight us about the constitutionality of what this judge is doing.

piva004• 2 years ago

Would be good if you listed all the abuses, violations, crimes happening in Brazil committed by the Supreme Court instead of vaguely referring to something the vast majority of users here will have no idea about, nor any way to research if they don't speak Portuguese.

diegoholiveira3• 2 years ago

- STF started a secret investigation about fake news, which is illegal because it’s not written on our constitution and make it the police and the punisher.

- people under investigation or jailed can’t access this secret investigation, even their lawyers can’t, so they don't know why they're being arrested for.

- STF is starting other investigations without being provoke, which is illegal under our constitution.

- they send one person to prison because he was running from justice on USA, but this person lawyer prove that he never leave the country. Even the USA authorities say he didn’t entered the country.

- they censored a magazine that published a report of corruption inside de court.

- they censored some journal about people calling to end the secret investigation.

- they are trying people who should be tried in the first instance (the US equivalent of local courts), not in the supreme court.

- all orders sent to X (twitter) are secret, including the reason why this person or tweet must be down. which is, of course, illegal under our "marco legal da internet", a law approved years ago that was suppose to regulate internet.

The list can go on.

lobocinza2• 2 years ago

What remains of justice when the judge is also the vindictive victim and the accuser?

Recently the press published message leaks indicating wrong conduct from Moraes or at least from his minions. In one of the messages they even cogitated — joking? — hiring someone to kidnap those they couldn't get extradited. But what summarizes all is Tagliaferro's, the chief of the supreme court investigative team (yep), answer to a journalist when asked if he was responsible for the leaks. That he, knowing Moraes, "would never have the courage" to do so.

https://www.poder360.com.br/poder-justica/ex-assessor-de-mor...

ivansmf• 2 years ago

Calling failing to show up or nominate a legal representative to a judicial hearing in a country that offers a ridiculous number of opportunities to appeal as "feud" shows some bias in reporting.

mlindner2• 2 years ago

The title is misleading. This doesn't mean the shut down of the website. Just suspending local operations of X, the company, inside Brazil.

MiguelX413• 2 years ago

Sad

matheusmoreira8• 2 years ago

X will likely be blocked in Brazil at the ISP level. And this judge-king is also known for threatening arbitrary fines totaling tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars against anyone making use of "subterfuge" to get around censorship. I wouldn't be surprised if one day he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and suddenly Brazil turns into the the first western country to outlaw civilian cryptography.

mlindner2• 2 years ago

X will likely be blocked in Brazil at the ISP level.

That is not what is being discussed. That's just people on the internet saying that.

FMecha• 2 years ago

Sources are reporting that they do threaten fines of R$50,000/day.

blackeyeblitzar6• 2 years ago

Brazil has been on a path to authoritarianism, especially since the last election. Moraes, the justice issuing unilateral orders to ban accounts, censor people, and arrest them (for political speech), is drunk with power and doing the sitting government’s bidding. Twitter is right to fight morally, for free speech. But they’re also right to challenge it legally - their claim is that Moraes’s orders aren’t constitutional under Brazilian law.

The NYT wrote previously how Alexandre de Moraes is a threat to democracy in Brazil: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/world/americas/brazil-ale...

matheusmoreira8• 2 years ago

Since 2019 when the "fake news" inquisition started. Someone ran an article on one of these judge-kings, and they basically gave themselves unlimited powers to investigate and judge whatever they want. Then the supreme court turned into a political party composed entirely of unelected individuals with direct power over police forces. That's the true coup.

In case anyone wants context:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36543423

blackeyeblitzar6• 2 years ago

Thanks for those links. I am surprised at what I am reading as it is worse than I thought. It’s also disappointing to not see these angles explored fully in mainstream media, as Brazil is a high population country with significant global economic ties, and this political shift is a huge problem for everyone.

piva004• 2 years ago

Brazil has been on a path to authoritarianism, especially since the last election.

I'd say especially since Bolsonaro was elected, not last election...

Prickle• 2 years ago

On one hand, I do want more countries taking social media to court.

However, in this specific case, it's been pretty clear that the Brazilian court orders send to X/Twitter. Specifically, some that order the censoring of specific individuals are illegal. (Some of these orders appear to violate other Brazilian laws)

This is a hard one to really judge. Just a mess overall.

geraldog• 2 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41316512

virgulino3• 2 years ago

In 20 hours Brazil could join China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Venezuela, as the only countries in the world where their citizens are banned from reading Twitter.

We will no longer be allowed to read what Biden, Kamala, the European leaders, the hundreds of thousands of institutions around the world and 350 million fellow earthlings have to say.

All this by way of the sudden and unappealable decision of a single judge this night.

Xunjin3• 2 years ago

Where is the decision not appealable? IIRC, X still can appeal to the entire supreme court about the decision.

virgulino3• 2 years ago

X no longer has any business or legal representative in Brazil.

sabbaticaldev• 2 years ago

what a big loss, what will we do without the bots and memes?

timeon• 2 years ago

I'm in EU and I'm already restricted by Twitter because i have no account.

edpichler4• 2 years ago

Alexandre de Moares is the president of the Brazilian Supreme Court, a selected group containing the most powerful individuals in the country. They are named by the president and once they are done, they never leave the position until they reach their compulsory retirement at the age of 75 years old.

They form the highest court of law in Brazil for constitutional issues and its rulings cannot be appealed.

Xunjin3• 2 years ago

The president of the court is a rotation, right now is Luis Roberto Barroso.

edpichler4• 2 years ago

The Brazilians are so lucky to have individuals with unblemished reputation working hard to protect them against misinformation.

edpichler4• 2 years ago

The same court that removed the penalties of more than two hundred confessed criminals during the investigation "operation car wash" [1] It was the largest corruption scandal in history of human kind [2].

The criminals confessed their crimes due to the sentence reduction incentives of the 'rewarded collaboration' law. One of the most important requirements to get the sentence reduction is "you cannot lie, if you do, you lose everything".

All of it, now, undone.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43825294

itsdrewmiller2• 2 years ago

I find your comment a little hard to parse - can you provide a link to something more specific about what you are claiming the Brazilian Supreme Court did that was corrupt? I didn't see anything obvious on the wikipedia page.

frozenlettuce• 2 years ago

https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2024/03/07/corruption...

edpichler4• 2 years ago

Sorry, it's hard when it is not my native language.

Yes, they are very corrupt. They are untouchable, and use the given power to their own benefit. The law is deliberately written very subjective so they can interpret and judge as it is convenient to them. They even use their power across their jurisdiction, which has been bringing debate in society lately.

Politics is an exchange of favours in that environment. To have an idea of how it is, I recommend you to watch "Elite Squad II" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1555149/

hulitu• 2 years ago

Brazil top court threatens to suspend X within 24 hours

Last i read X suspended operations in Brazil. What changed ?

Brazil top court threatens to suspend X within 24 hours

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