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Brazilian court orders suspension of X

theguardian.com

181–190 of 388 posts

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Brazil, a Justice of the Supreme Court has the power to impose fines on people and companies that violate the law. In this case, federal law #12.965.

I did NOT violate the law. How come he is deleting the VPN apps on my phone??? That I need to remote to my overseas job??? How come I I'm now banned from reading what Zelensky, Kasparov, Yann LeCun, and thousands of others world leaders have to say? How come my neighbor, who makes a honest living through X-Twitter, has now lost her job?

They can't and won't delete any apps from your phone, but the apps would be gone from the stores, which does not make it much less of a bullshit.

Restricting access to X makes sense: the platform has removed themselves from the country, making it impossible to resolve legal and financial disputes in Brazil, so it makes sense they are not allowed to operate in the country anymore.

Then again, punishing users that access it through other means is baffling.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#182
This is a very, very sad day for the Internet. Unfortunately, you can expect that every app and every platform will get localized and blocking will be normalized.

Soon TikTok will be blocked in the USA. I expect this to serve as an example and an avalanche to follow across the globe.

Blocking a platform for alleged crimes committed the by operator or participants is a punishment for all the users. It’s ridiculous but unfortunately, it appears that the world is ready to accept this as a solution.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the tooth fairy asked Bob Ross to do a kick flip over Mordor does that mean that Long John Silver’s is open on Sunday? This question is an equally relevant response to someone pointing out an uncontested fact about how courts work.

Is it?

It looks like Long John Silver’s is open every day but Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it even remotely modeled after the US system of checks and balances? How does the court have what also seems like legislative power?

Even in the USA courts have some limited investigation powers over matters under the jurisdiction of the court, for example when a draft of the Dobbs abortion ruling was leaked.

Brazil has dialed this up to 11 by declaring the Internet as being under their jurisdiction. That means they can act as judge, prosecutor, and jury and issue court orders regarding anything that happens on the Internet. There is zero recourse because they are the supreme court.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#186

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 wors…

This peer thing arises from a common law heritage. Brazil operates under civilian law. Totally different.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#187

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 wors…

I don't think it is about judicial systems and what not. The judge is only able to take dictatorial powers in Brazil because the society as a whole is not in a position to fight against it and kind of accepts it as something unfixable (lots of people might even support it). I doubt the Brazilian Constitution gives him such vast power.

The problem is many politicians who have power to change it or remove such person are dirty and to keep their mandates, prefer to not talk or do anything about it! On the other side the current voters are brain washed or manipulated through presents during the elections to vote in someone, so it'll be a long journey to reverts things here.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#188

I might not agree with Elon Musk on things he says and does these days, but he's very much in the right here, at least if you value freedom of speech, privacy, and democracy. The judge tried to silence the political opposition on Twitter via shadowbans and removal, Elon didn't comply, so they decided to go after Twitter employees in Brazil, to which Elon shut everything down to prevent the employees from being jailed…

I thought Lula was left wing.

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#189
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what content was requested to be removed. If the opposition was spreading lies about elections being stolen, that seems like reasonable content to moderate. Not all moderation is bad, and different places have different tolerances for it. I keep seeing people say "silencing the opposition" but not actually providing what that means in practice. Could be authoritarian, could be not. Given musk's history a…

> that seems like reasonable content to moderate Why should the government be the one to make that decision? If anyone has a conflict of interest, it's them, no?

I mean, Germany bans nazi imagery in media. Many countries ban false advertising. A number consider it not ok to discriminate against people based on their characteristics. Fringe health statements are often disallowed. TikTok just got hit with a speech case about a girl hanging herself to death because of a video.

Government moderates speech all the time, and yes, there's obviously grey areas and opportunities for abuse with those systems. I want to see the examples. Not someone grinding an axe with "the opposition"... show me what was not allowed.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#190

What starlink chooses to do will be most interesting, deny any connection, block X like the isps have been ordered and try and get their bank accounts reinstated. Or pull out of Brazil on the ground and operate as a rogue isp whose money can be blocked, in the short term at least but not their service. I hope it's the 2nd, be a lesson to all world leaders, and not just ultra authoritarian ones, that the Internet does…

> that the Internet doesn't respect geographic boarder

There's a tonne of regulations already applying to the internet. Yes you can control it like that and many countries do. Twitter already had flags for filtering content based on local laws.

It's a cool overall idea, but no. It doesn't work like that in practice. Not for a person not very informed about traffic masking anyway.

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