Brazil’s supreme court upholds ban on Elon Musk’s X over ‘illegal conduct’
Brazil’s supreme court upholds ban on Elon Musk’s X over ‘illegal conduct’
Refusal to comply with local laws suggests social media company ‘considered itself above the rule of law’, says judge
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”.
Refusal to comply with local laws suggests social media company ‘considered itself above the rule of law’
Seems like a correct observation to me.
90It'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.
25
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.
75Even if it somehow gets reinstated, the damage is done. Majority have already left for alternatives.
33The 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
Or
- 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.
17They'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
-2Are 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.
-21
Not gonna lie my inner child would be delighted to see Brazil shooting down Starlink satellites.
19they don't need to, they just need to seize the ground PoPs and block ips to make it unusably slow.
7I 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.
5
Lol everybody here talking trash about X breaking the law. But when a streaming service up their price it is about sailing the high seas, torrent this and pirate that.
-10Don’t you have boots to lick?
10No contradiction. Law is a dumb basis for deciding what you like and don't like.
1
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).
-20Musk literally refused to comply to the supreme court of Brazil. How the heck are they in the wrong for blocking X?
23Imagine people that work using X as their sustenance platform. Just imagine it. Oh, no one cares about them, neither government, nor corporations, nor minions from both sides... Because Hobbes was right. Men is a wolf to men.
-21
Oh dear, "both sides are the same", amirite?
16Nailed it. Prove me wrong.
-15