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

bbc.com

191–200 of 258 posts

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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Do you recognize the possibility of good-faith disagreements on matters of fact, or do you expect that every reasonable person should agree in all cases about what's true and false? In the latter case I agree I don't see a productive discussion to be had here.

People who deny climate change and other settled science and don't wear masks because they think it's a political statement aren't "reasonable people".

Oh you're throwing climate change into the group of "absolute truth".

Philosophy of science isn't that objectively finalized btw. The whole Vienna school which got obliterated by philosophers because it said that only valid scientific statements are those which can be empirically verified.

I understand that majority of the people making a certain viewpoint may be stupid but don't take it as the strength of your scientific statements. Even theory of evolution may need major corrections tomorrow and could even turn out to be completely false.

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

#192
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 force…

> The platform is the medium that's enabling slander. That's a naive take. It's like saying roads enabled accidents and thus must be demolished. On most countries, usually the specific infriging content is ordered to be taken down, not the entire account. Read about DMCA for example. Youtube channels have specific content taken down, not the entire channel.

> That's a naive take. It's like saying roads enabled accidents and thus must be demolished.

No, it's like saying that roads which are found to be repeatedly causing accidents should be fixed in order to allow everyone to drive safely. Which is what happens in real life.

And you seemed to have turned a blind eye to the fact that ISPs have been for decades complying with court orders to remove access to illegal content hosted and made available by them. You don't need to resort to convoluted apples-to-oranges comparisons to understand the problem and it's solution.

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

#193
Brazilian here. Our law is incompatible with the Internet as we know it.

Below is a brief excerpt from our 1989 Constitution, translated by myself:

Art. 5º Todos são iguais perante a lei, sem distinção de qualquer natureza, garantindo-se aos brasileiros e aos estrangeiros residentes no País a inviolabilidade do direito à vida, à liberdade, à igualdade, à segurança e à propriedade, nos termos seguintes:

(All men are equal by the law, without any distinction, guaranteed to Brazilians and foreigners living on the Country the inviolable right to life, freedom, equality, safety, property, on the following terms:)

(...)

IV - é livre a manifestação do pensamento, sendo vedado o anonimato;

(The freedom of speech/thinking is allowed, but anonymity is not)

(...)

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

#194
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Not sure I follow the logic. The content is illegal in Brazil only for now. The ruling explicitly tells facebook to take down content worldwide.

> The content is illegal in Brazil only for now.

There is no such thing as "only for now". Either it violates the law, or it doesn't. The court deemed that it breaks the law, thus the law should not continue to be broken. Hence the ruling.

> The ruling explicitly tells facebook to take down content worldwide.

The court determined that Facebook hosts content that violates the law. Therefore Facebook should remove the offending content. That's it.

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

#195
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm originally from Turkey, and that's also the case with Erdoğan. I mean, they wouldn't be dictators if everyone agreed with them, no? The big problem arising from the stark polarization is that there's no uncontaminated news sources anymore. Many argue that news should be political anyway but I really miss reading stuff that doesn't fit 100 percent to a single agenda.

Polarization is exactly that, remove all gradients. Fascists like to make out everything is black-white. “Only siths deal in absolutes”

I’ve always thought that quote itself was curiously absolute. ‘Only’, Yoda?

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

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold on, Bolsonaro is not a dictator. Federalism even recently screwed him over. He didn't act on COVID but individual states imposed their own measures and thankfully countered his opinion.

That's like saying Mussolini was not a dictator in 1922, because there were still so many factions competing against him in Italian politics. Possibly true, but it's also clear what direction he was heading. By 1925 he had largely consolidated his power.

[deleted]

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

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as in this case the posts in question include direct physical threats like threatening the children of judges with murder and rape. Using social media to threaten physical violence against Bolsonaro's opponents has been a theme all throughout his time in power.

Absolutely none of the censored did threat with physical aggressions. It is quite the opposite. Bolsonaro was stabbed, and almost died, by a leftist activist, with former link to a far left party, PSOL. Dirceu, the strategist head of PT, the main opposition to Bolsonaro, gave an interview recently saying that “it is time to retake position of power, which is not the same as winning the elections”. Marcelo Freixo, cur…

Dirceu's quote was retracted and said to be unfortunate. Also he was talking about a scenario where Bolsonaro executed a military coup.

Freixo meant that about Bolsonarismo, not the right. Which is a sentiment I agree.

Your claim about Alexandre de Moraes is conspiracy theory, there's no serious reason to believe he's involved on Zavascki's death.

Yeah, Bolsonaro was stabbed by a nutjob, and STF's ministers and family constantly receive threats from people online. Both affirmations are true, although that's not the reason for the censoring in question.

I completely agree STF went to far in this matter and it's worrying that they're starting to feel comfortable censoring speech. But nothing you said related to it. It feels like you're trying to imply "see, it's the left that's actually violent", which is not only unfaithful to the general public discourse in Brazil but also contributes to polarization without adding nothing to the discussion in hand.

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

#198
There seems to be some confusion in the comments regarding this decision.

This is not an arbitrary decision made in a vacuum. There’s an ongoing judicial inquiry, and the accounts suspended were linked to persons of interest. They’re currently being investigated for crimes in both civil and penal spheres.

The accounts were not banned, they are temporarily suspended for the course of the investigation. Also, it’s explicitly mentioned that, given the evidences (which the accused parties have access to), some individual rights are being suspended, as they’re not shields for committing crimes or avoiding responsibility. The decision also mentions that Constitutional rights don’t exist on their own, they find their limits in the other equally important rights and guarantees contained in the Constitution. This is not some exotic feature of Brazilian law, it’s something also mentioned in the Declaration of Human Rights (which is also cited).

Having said that, all affected parties have the right to contest the measure, this is not an autocratic decision.

Finally, if Facebook and Twitter wants to operate in Brazil, they need to comply with Brazilian laws, including complying with court decisions. You can definitely argue against blocking the information world wide, but similar decisions were made by other democratic countries (like Canada).

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

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely none of the censored did threat with physical aggressions. It is quite the opposite. Bolsonaro was stabbed, and almost died, by a leftist activist, with former link to a far left party, PSOL. Dirceu, the strategist head of PT, the main opposition to Bolsonaro, gave an interview recently saying that “it is time to retake position of power, which is not the same as winning the elections”. Marcelo Freixo, cur…

Dirceu's quote was retracted and said to be unfortunate. Also he was talking about a scenario where Bolsonaro executed a military coup. Freixo meant that about Bolsonarismo, not the right. Which is a sentiment I agree. Your claim about Alexandre de Moraes is conspiracy theory, there's no serious reason to believe he's involved on Zavascki's death. Yeah, Bolsonaro was stabbed by a nutjob, and STF's ministers and famil…

> Yeah, Bolsonaro was stabbed by a nutjob, and STF's ministers and family constantly receive threats from people online. Both affirmations are true, although that's not the reason for the censoring in question.

None of the censored made threats to any ministers, other than legal political activism. I would be surprised if you could link to just one occurrence of threat to ministers.

What is unfaithful is to say otherwise. The left in Brazil IS violent, period. They have a history with terrorism, in 70’s, agency with Cuba and USSR, the murdering of deserters (see Celso Daniel’s case), money laundering to finance despotic government abroad third world and their own plan “to be kept permanently on power“ - Dirceu again, has he retracted that as well?

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