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Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

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Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#91

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

dgfitz wrote: post #74

Disclaimer: indifferent at best to musk, probably more dislike than anything else, but not with vitriol. So I read that this is all because musk refused to appoint a Brazilian citizen as an X representative, as dictated by Brazilian law. I have not verified this part. Musk refused because the last person to fill that role had all their bank accounts frozen by the judge. The judge also cut off payments from Brazilian…

Not exactly. X had a local representative who was threatened by this judge issuing illegal censorship orders. It’s not that they refused to appoint a representative but that they had to get rid of all their employees and legal representation in Brazil because the judge was going after them as individuals, making it impossible for X to challenge what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech.

The root of the issue is that Alexandre de Moraes, a single justice on the Supreme Court, has been issuing secret orders to censor content, ban accounts, and jail people over political speech. This is unconstitutional in Brazil per article 5 of the 1988 constitution, so X refused the orders. Note that the text of the Brazilian constitution explicitly says that the freedom of expression is guaranteed without censorship (it mentions “censorship”). If they were legal orders they would have complied, as they have in other countries.

Also the “Musk refused” part isn’t accurate. Ultimately these decisions are made by Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X.

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#92

Post by jazzyjackson »

verdverm wrote: post #62
stevebmark wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AT Protocol aggregators (“relays”) can choose their own content moderation policies. It’s possible that if there are multiple relays, and one of them doesn’t block violent / hate speech, the government would ban that relay and corresponding domain, and others could continue to thrive.

ATProto actually separates moderation from PDS or App View. Users can choose which labellers they prefer and can even combine them, separate from where they host their data or the UI they choose to use. https://bsky.social/about/blog/03-12-2024-stackable-moderati... They do the same for feeds, 4 core components, with user choice and interoperability for each

So what levers does that give governments seeking to get compliance out of an internet service - if multiple apps are hosting anti-party propaganda the government has to block the domains of each app ?

Or, perhaps the domains of the content itself is blocked so apps continue to work but fail to load content within certain borders ?

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#93

Post by delichon »

pfraze wrote: post #76

Copying over my latest backend status update; figure folks would find it interesting Servers are holding up so far! Fortunately we were overprovisioned. If we hit 4mm new signups then things should get interesting. We did have some degradations (user handles entering an invalid state, event-stream crashed a couple times, algo crashed a couple times, image servers hit bad latencies) but we managed to avoid a full outa…

Does Bluesky intend to be responsive to the kind of court orders that X rejected?

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#94

Post by dgfitz »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #91
dgfitz wrote: post #74

Disclaimer: indifferent at best to musk, probably more dislike than anything else, but not with vitriol. So I read that this is all because musk refused to appoint a Brazilian citizen as an X representative, as dictated by Brazilian law. I have not verified this part. Musk refused because the last person to fill that role had all their bank accounts frozen by the judge. The judge also cut off payments from Brazilian…

Not exactly. X had a local representative who was threatened by this judge issuing illegal censorship orders. It’s not that they refused to appoint a representative but that they had to get rid of all their employees and legal representation in Brazil because the judge was going after them as individuals, making it impossible for X to challenge what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech. The root of…

Thank you for the clarifying information.

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#95

Post by jazzyjackson »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #33
esharte wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the whole part where these "policial opponents" attempted a coup against the democratically elected president?

Everyone has a right to speech, even those you disagree with politically.

I guess the assertion above is that they were not banned for mere speech?

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#96

Post by vaidhy »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #91
dgfitz wrote: post #74

Disclaimer: indifferent at best to musk, probably more dislike than anything else, but not with vitriol. So I read that this is all because musk refused to appoint a Brazilian citizen as an X representative, as dictated by Brazilian law. I have not verified this part. Musk refused because the last person to fill that role had all their bank accounts frozen by the judge. The judge also cut off payments from Brazilian…

Not exactly. X had a local representative who was threatened by this judge issuing illegal censorship orders. It’s not that they refused to appoint a representative but that they had to get rid of all their employees and legal representation in Brazil because the judge was going after them as individuals, making it impossible for X to challenge what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech. The root of…

We are talking about the same Elon who tweeted the picture of the judge behind bars in an masterful attempt to resolve the issue, right?

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#97

Post by hybrid_study »

mstipetic wrote: post #11
adventured wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no possible alternatives to US based services unless you enjoy extreme restrictions on speech. Europe has become a big no-go zone for speech over the past decade, they're outright hostile and authoritarian about it (with only a few exceptions among European nations). And the direction re liberalism and human rights in Europe is overwhelmingly hostile toward speech. And for South America, Africa and Asia you…

[flagged]

this is called Popper's Tolerance Paradox, and you are quite right.

it's truly amazing how many people dont really get that having only 99% free speech is just fine

Re: Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

#99

Post by gradus_ad »

vaidhy wrote: post #96
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly. X had a local representative who was threatened by this judge issuing illegal censorship orders. It’s not that they refused to appoint a representative but that they had to get rid of all their employees and legal representation in Brazil because the judge was going after them as individuals, making it impossible for X to challenge what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech. The root of…

We are talking about the same Elon who tweeted the picture of the judge behind bars in an masterful attempt to resolve the issue, right?

Is that relevant to the illegality of Moraes' secret censorship campaign?
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