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Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

bbc.com

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Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#151

Post by ratww »

gavribirnbaum wrote: post #133
castevictim wrote: post #90

I am glad that Brazil's court still remains independent. Looks like Bolsonaro, should borrow couple of tips from his friend Narendra Modi. Modi, dismantled the institutions in India systematically to guarantee his long lasting power. e.g. The only official from the election commission who didn't give a clean-chit to Modi for his election campaign violations during last election was greeted with Income Tax raids on hi…

Last time I visited Brazil some 5 years ago, the courts would ban Whatsapp every couple months. They were in bed with telecom companies that hated that Whatsapp made many of their services free.

That's a wildly uninformed accusation.

There's a lot of problems with telecoms there, but WhatsApp actually has partnerships to enjoy "unlimited" bandwidth privileges with all four mobile operators in Brazil. Just checked and all four have such plans: Claro, Vivo, TIM and Oi.

The bans were because the courts were trying to coerce WhatsApp into responding to subpoenas.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#152

Post by concordDance »

deanCommie wrote: post #122
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you support this even if Facebook suppressed some ideas you believe in, or are you working under the assumption that Facebook will always agree with you about what's true?

I...don't know how to respond to that. Truth is truth. Yes, there is right wing fascist parties that are trying to nullify the meaning of the word, and introduce subjectivity where there should not be any, sowing doubt on the very idea of Reality. But this is not the new normal for society or humanity. I refuse to believe that, or we're truly doomed. This is a temporary hurdle made by desperate people trying to hold…

Truth is truth, but not everyone agrees on whether particular things are true.

The majority of people can be wrong about something (Berenstein Bears anyone?), ignorant about things (e.g. the exciting things the USA did in South America in the last century) or can be misinformed even by reputatable organizations (e.g. WHO advising against face masks). They can also be misinformed about what the science indicates (e.g. anything about intelligence and heritability).

The truth is often not obvious, can be unintuitive or can go against deeply held values. Would you be ok with Facebook censoring anything talking about equality because people aren't all equal?

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#153

Post by gavribirnbaum »

ratww wrote: post #151
gavribirnbaum wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I visited Brazil some 5 years ago, the courts would ban Whatsapp every couple months. They were in bed with telecom companies that hated that Whatsapp made many of their services free.

That's a wildly uninformed accusation. There's a lot of problems with telecoms there, but WhatsApp actually has partnerships to enjoy "unlimited" bandwidth privileges with all four mobile operators in Brazil. Just checked and all four have such plans: Claro, Vivo, TIM and Oi. The bans were because the courts were trying to coerce WhatsApp into responding to subpoenas.

I'm not sure that was the case 4 years ago. They first tried to beat it before joining it.

The subpoenas were widely seen as a pretext among the population. It is Brazil: you have to read between the lines.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#154

Post by tonyedgecombe »

mattigames wrote: post #113
refurb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. You may not agree with Zuckerberg's position of not censoring content (beyond the obscene), but it's probably the smartest position for the business. As soon as you start saying "well, we'll censor stuff that isn't accurate", you've opened a Pandora's box of every single interest group hammering you on every single decision and in the end everyone thinks you're screwing them over.

I think the solution is clear: If governments want to censor they should do it themselves not externalize costs to the foreign media company, meaning Facebook should give them access to an API/dashboard with all the posts created or viewed on Brazil and government employees should pick manually (or by algorithm) what to censor. After that any request of censoring anything coming from Brazil should be directed at the…

I wonder what could go wrong with that.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#155

Post by jariel »

bachmeier wrote: post #148
jariel wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No obscene, inappropriate. But it can very quickly descend into the obscene, and if they didn't filter you'd get nasty dick picks all over the place. Every social place has rules, not exception. It's just a matter of how they are impressed.

It's more than that though. It's not just the quantity of stuff you wouldn't want to see, but that FB would then be known for that type of content, and they'd lose the other content that brings in the money. Purely from a business model perspective, they want to keep that stuff off.

Purely from a business perspective, they do not want boobs and dick picks, it would die as quickly as chatroulette.

Not only would most people flee, advertisers would as well.

FYI advertisers don't like hate speech as well, which is why there are rules about that.

The perplexing issue comes down to things that are not 'hate speech' so much as a) insensitive things and b) truly 'fake news' ie QAnon, anti-vax etc.

You're right to point out that it is this stuff at the 'fringe' that keeps a lot of people engaged. Hence the paradox.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#156

Post by ratww »

gavribirnbaum wrote: post #153
ratww wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a wildly uninformed accusation. There's a lot of problems with telecoms there, but WhatsApp actually has partnerships to enjoy "unlimited" bandwidth privileges with all four mobile operators in Brazil. Just checked and all four have such plans: Claro, Vivo, TIM and Oi. The bans were because the courts were trying to coerce WhatsApp into responding to subpoenas.

I'm not sure that was the case 4 years ago. They first tried to beat it before joining it. The subpoenas were widely seen as a pretext among the population. It is Brazil: you have to read between the lines.

That's still sounds like a wild and unfounded accusation.

And that was partially already the case a few years ago:

TIM started free WhatsApp plans in 2014 [1].

Claro started in 2015 [2].

Oi started later, but it already had a similar plan in 2013 for Facebook Messenger, before WhatsApp acquisition [3].

Vivo seems to be the only holdout, starting in 2018, but that's far from proof that they were in bed with judges just to damage WhatsApp.

And frankly, "you have to read between the lines" sounds like code for unfounded conspiracy theories. Unfortunately something that is currently destroying the country.

[1] https://tecnoblog.net/170330/tim-controle-whatsapp-internet-...

[2] https://gizmodo.uol.com.br/claro-turbinada-detalhes/

[3] https://tecnoblog.net/131671/oi-facebook-messenger-de-graca/

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#157

Post by rumanator »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #119
rumanator wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of these things have illegal non-speech components (fraud, child abuse), Do you find slander to not fit the bill? And what about calling for a military coup to persecuted anyone they see fit?

> Do you find slander to not fit the bill? But it's still the same thing -- what does it have to do with the platform? Go sue the actual speaker, and keep collecting damages from them as long as they keep using the platform to publish the slander. > And what about calling for a military coup to persecuted anyone they see fit? A military coup pretty obviously falls under a non-speech act which is itself illegal.

> But it's still the same thing -- what does it have to do with the platform?

The platform is the medium that's enabling slander. If Bolsonaro's minions were publishing their fake news and slanderous attacks on newspapers, the newspaper would also be held accountable for it's responsibility of wilfully spreading false information.

> Go sue the actual speaker

It's not an either/or thing.

Similarly, ISPs are also forced to comply with cutting access to services that violate the law.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#158

Post by rumanator »

hu3 wrote: post #120
rumanator wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I sure hope they can reverse it in court. Otherwise this will be a precedent for that judge to block any account it sees fit The ruling was based on track records of conducting libel campaigns targetting anyone who could jeopardize Bolsonaro's political goals, not to mention supporting military coups to allow him to become president for life and silence any critic. And it seems you're missing the fact that the ruli…

The issue here is, as stated in the article, facebook was ordered to block worldwide access to facebook accounts based on brazilian law. I couldn't care less about what said accounts were posting if they were protected by the 1st amendment. The problem here is the precedence of an overreach.

> The issue here is, as stated in the article, facebook was ordered to block worldwide access to facebook accounts based on brazilian law.

It really isn't. ISPs are also required to cut access to illegal content. Facebook is a service provider that willingly provides access to illegal content, thus it is required to take it down.

That's the whole point of the ruling.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#159

Post by dgellow »

ve55 wrote: post #9

Very glad I'm not Facebook. No matter what choices you make, millions (or billions) will hate you. Is decentralization the only solution, if it even is one?

> Is decentralization the only solution, if it even is one?

I feel that question is too often discussed without enough context. To be able to find a solution, we should first agree on what is the problem.

So, what's your problem statement?

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#160

Post by ratww »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #149
thimabi wrote: post #43

The technical argument from the court is quite intriguing. The Supreme Court justice only wants to prevent access to the blocked profiles within Brazil. However, he says Facebook should not allow Brazilians themselves to view such profiles by “subterfuge” (by changing their registered country on Facebook settings or using VPNs, according to the Court’s tech advisors). In the end, the most efficient way for Facebook t…

Where did you read the technical arguments? The article doesn't mention them. In fact, the article is very light on information, and only left me confused about the situation, like why are the presidents supporters calling for a coup? And how does blocking a dozen accounts change anything, really? Would the people behind them not simply open more sockpuppet accounts?

> why are the presidents supporters calling for a coup

Acts asking for a militar coup have been happening for the last few years among the radical right. Their demands are not clear enough, so most news reports are about them happening and events surrounded them, such as the president appearing in some of them. [1] [2]

---

I'm not going to guess what they want, so let's just translate what their banners say. Hopefully I can be unbiased.

- "Military intervention / Close the supreme court and congress / With Bolsonaro as president" [3]

- "Military tribunal", "Criminalize Communism", among others I can't read [4].

- "Military intervention so that Bolsonaro can govern". In the back: "criminalize communism" [5].

- "AI-5 with Bolsonaro in power" [6].

The last one is about AI-5. AI-5, according to Wiki:

"resulted in the forfeiture of mandates, interventions ordered by the President in municipalities and states and also in the suspension of any constitutional guarantees which eventually resulted in the institutionalization of the torture commonly used as a tool by the State." [7]

The previous reference is in english.

---

> And how does blocking a dozen accounts change anything, really? Would the people behind them not simply open more sockpuppet accounts?

Some of them are under house arrest and forbidden from using social networks. [7]

The others are stopped for different reasons, but according to a news website "there's still no information about the reasons". [8]

If they open sock puppets, this will probably be dealt with in a case by case basis.

---

Sorry for the excessive number of sources. This is still ongoing and very hard to explain, so I have no recourse.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-52353804

[2] https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/04/19/bolsonaro-d...

[3] https://media.gazetadopovo.com.br/2020/04/22162620/manifesta... / https://mediastorage.cnnbrasil.com.br/IMAGES/00/00/00/3368_7...

[4] https://conteudo.imguol.com.br/c/noticias/c0/2020/06/21/2106...

[5] https://static.poder360.com.br/2020/06/Apoiadores-Bolsonaro-...

[6] https://static.poder360.com.br/2020/04/bolsonaro-AI-5.jpg

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Act_Number_Five

[8] https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-53570792

[9] https://economia.ig.com.br/2020-07-31/luciano-hang-da-havan-...

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