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Brazilian court orders suspension of X

theguardian.com

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Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#31

Post by wtcactus »

In judicial systems like the Brazilian (and sadly many European ones) a judge that’s sufficiently high up in the judicial ladder gets to be judge and jury.

He is technically bound by the law, but he also has the power to interpret the law as he sees fit (many such cases in Portugal for instance).

This system puts too much power in the hands of a single person and as such is ripe for abuse for personal causes… or worst, for personal gains. There’s nothing democratic about this.

It should be a jury of fellow peers to decide if someone is guilty of actually breaking a law.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#32

Post by marcosdumay »

virgulino wrote: post #5

"People who use VPN to access X will be subject to daily fines of US$8,900" Edit: Thanks for this user https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41404325 for posting the court order and bringing this new information: Apple and Google must remove all VPN apps from their stores! Apple and Google must DELETE all VPN apps already installed on users' phones!!! https://apnews.com/article/brazil-musk-x-suspended-de-moraes...

Wow!

I had to check with local news, because I couldn't believe it. It checks out, he did impose the fine. (It's R$50k if somebody is as uninformed as I was.)

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#34

Post by bestatsiege_01 »

outside1234 wrote: post #9
guywithahat wrote: post #7

This has been a bad week for Democracy/freedom of speech

All Elon needs to do is have a legal representative in Brazil for his commercial venture. He chose this.

According to X the Brazilian Court threatened the legal rep with imprisonment, then after they quit the court froze the bank accounts of said rep anyway.

If that is true it strongly biases me towards believing X is in the right.

Those are astonishingly authoritarian actions.

https://twitter.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1829296715989414281

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#36

Post by ddtaylor »

throwaway87267 wrote: post #13

The same judge that is responsible for X's suspension ordered Apple and Google to take down VPN apps from their app stores as well. https://web.archive.org/web/20240830201851/https://www.conju... (Page 49 and 50, document is in Portuguese) Brazil is heading down a very dark path.

For anyone curious:

    Proton VPN
    Express VPN
    NordVPN
    Surfshark,
    TOTALVPN
    Atlas VPN
    Bitdefender VPN
There are some pretty well known VPNs that are NOT on that list. Private Internet Access (PIA) for example is absent. Sure, it's used more for torrenting than anything else, but it's one of the most popular VPNs.

I thought maybe PIA just doesn't operate in Brazil, but they actually have a specific page dedicated to it:

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/vpn-server/brazil-vpn

Maybe that VPN is already illegal somehow in Brazil?

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#38

Post by marcosdumay »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #3
eatonphil wrote: post #2

> The decision imposes a daily fine of R$50,000 (£6,800) on individuals and companies that attempt to continue using X via VPN. Fining even users is a bit surprising.

How can a court arbitrarily impose fines on users like this?

There's a lot to say about the Brazilian Supreme Court abuses of power.

And to be complete on the context, I expect it to have teeth.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#39

Post by nomdep »

bubblesnort wrote: post #22
blurbleblurble wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can a court arbitrarily impose fines on users like this?

They can't. I can easily use a Brazil endpoint to establish a tunnel elsewhere and browse X, formerly Twitter. I suppose they could try fining the VPN service provider. (But even then they won't be able to prove what's going on.)

The logical next step would be putting you under investigation for using a VPN “because only criminals need privacy”

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#40

Post by sva_ »

virgulino wrote: post #5

"People who use VPN to access X will be subject to daily fines of US$8,900" Edit: Thanks for this user https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41404325 for posting the court order and bringing this new information: Apple and Google must remove all VPN apps from their stores! Apple and Google must DELETE all VPN apps already installed on users' phones!!! https://apnews.com/article/brazil-musk-x-suspended-de-moraes...

Is it normal that a judge can impose such blanket fines on users?
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