Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 855 posts

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

#351

Post by UberFly »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #152
croes wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it about the people who invaded government buildings on January 8 2923 because they claimed Jair Bolsonaro won the election much like the January 6 attack in the USA after Trump lost? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Brazilian_Congress_atta... The same people who wanted to overthrow the government and wanted a coup d'état by the military? I doubt that the US government would differently in such cases. And T…

As far as I'm aware, the American government has never ordered a social media platform to ban certain accounts. Even mild government suggestions about social media content are quite controversial in the US.

You are not so aware then.

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

#352

Post by kelseyfrog »

slowhadoken wrote: post #296
threeseed wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because X is not complying with the law in that country. Whether the law is right or not is irrelevant. You either comply or leave.

Wow sounds totalitarian. Maybe it’s for the best that Musk disassociates with Brazil.

Usually folks conceive of the continuum like so

Rule of Law >-------------How do you think about it?

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

#353

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

riverrunn01 wrote: post #246
braiamp wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech. As in Brazil constitution? They don't have free speech, but freedom of expression. Read article 5 of the Brazilian constitution.

the 1st Art of our Constitution is exactly this: "Art. 1º A República Federativa do Brasil, formada pela união indissolúvel dos Estados e Municípios e do Distrito Federal, constitui-se em Estado Democrático de Direito e tem como fundamentos: I - a soberania; II - a cidadania; ****** III - a dignidade da pessoa humana;**** (The dignity of human being being assured) Then it comes the Art 5: Art. 5º Todos são iguais per…

For others reading the parent comment to this one - they left out the most relevant part of the Brazilian constitution for this situation, presumably on purpose to make the secret censorship orders look legal. Within Article 5, is Title 9 which reads:

> “IX. expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific, and communication activity is free, independent of any censorship or license”

And note that the introductory text that precedes this reads:

> “Everyone is equal before the law, with no distinction whatsoever, guaranteeing to Brazilians and foreigners residing in the Country the inviolability of the rights to life, liberty, equality, security and property, on the following terms:”

In other words, “communication activity” (which posting on Twitter obviously constitutes) is protected without censorship.

Source: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2014?l...

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

#354

Post by EnigmaFlare »

mstipetic wrote: post #35
tirant wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spread of lies or false information has always been the price the pay in order to have free speech. It is the task of the individuals in free societies to discern the lies from the truth, or at least to choose their tools in doing so. You’re lying to yourself if you believe you can have real human free speech with a system capable of censoring all lies.

Yes but once people mess up and choose the wrong thing it’s very hard to go back. There are plenty of examples of countries where bad actors have taken over all institutions and what then? There are not takesies backsies

Do you consider anti-government Chinese people, such as Falun Gong members or general pro-democracy activists to be bad actors and that censoring their speech is important to protect institutions from them? I'm trying to point out that you can't simply decide who's good and who's bad. Censorship entrenches whoever happens to be in power regardless of their merits. Maybe you think democracy is the important part and autocratic governments are wrong to do censorship while democratic ones are wrong to allow free speech?

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

#355

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

riverrunn01 wrote: post #223
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…

Nope Im Brazilian. And all of this started way before. These orders were not imbalanced -- the blocking of X accounts -- (Ok VPN now is). Musk after several court decisions decided to not comply, even after all involved received due process. It's not, in the slightest, censorship at all. What really happened was violation of ellection rules on daily basis, specially on X but many other social also were fined. META, T…

[flagged]

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

#356

Post by UberFly »

pfraze wrote: post #272
sillyalbatross wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk, like anyone else, has a right to endorse whoever he wants. Unless there's evidence that he's mass censoring or banning Democrats, I don't really see why there'd be any outrage. No one certainly seems to care when Silicon Valley big wigs donate to the other side. Seems like even Masnick agrees, albeit begrudgingly, that this judge is an authoritarian. Where I cannot agree with Masnick is the implication that Mus…

As a libertarian, how am I supposed to believe in the authenticity and neutrality of the network that Musk is operating when he openly supports a specific political ideology with his public actions? He shows no dedication to neutrality in his statements, so why should I believe he shows it with his decisions? If the measure of a high standard is the number of people impacted, how many people would you say are affecte…

> He shows no dedication to neutrality in his statements

How about his actions? He's been miles more democratic than the previous owners of Twitter.

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

#357

Post by JumpCrisscross »

roenxi wrote: post #315
kstenerud wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's partisan/political because Musk is partisan/political. And it's not just Musk. We've been living in a fantasy land of "no political affiliation" in the tech world for decades, and now that the age of the hyper-rich has come once again, they are realizing the benefits of using the power they wield to shape the worlds they live in. So now in the early stages of this century's great fight, we'll see our beloved tec…

> We've been living in a fantasy land of "no political affiliation" in the tech world for decades Which "we" are you speaking for? That doesn't sound like the tech world, we've had a lot of explicitly political tech movements over the years. Off the top of my head some of the more successful and major ones were: - Cryptography. - Free Software. - Cryptocurrency. The Silicon Valley based companies have been politicall…

> Which "we" are you speaking for? That doesn't sound like the tech world...Silicon Valley based companies have been politically active since at least 2016

That was the tipping point. Before Trump, it was common to hear techies in the Bay Area proudly proclaim that they didn't concern themselves with politics. (Reminds me of the way aristocratic Europeans talk about commerce.)

Tech always had views on policy. But it wasn't outwardly opinionated on politics, certainly not partisan politics, in the overt (and influential) way that it is today.

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

#358

Post by EnigmaFlare »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #319
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn’t calling it absolute. I used the word fundamental. My meaning was that giving people this freedom means giving them the freedom to lie as well. I agree that we can debate specific exceptions, which I feel SCOTUS precedence has explored in very nuanced ways. But that’s not where I was going. I was making the point that even if you think something is a ‘truth’, what you perceive as a ‘lie’ must be allowed since…

> giving people this freedom means giving them the freedom to lie as well. I agree that we can debate specific exceptions We can. But we don't and never have. Anyone arguing for the freedom to lie without consequence is off the deep end. There has never been a society that doesn't punish lying and fraud. (What constitutes a lie is a deeper question.) > even if you think something is a ‘truth’, what you perceive as a…

Fraud isn't just lying, it also has to be for some sort of personal gain, typically financial. You're taking their money too. If you tell people that if they invest in your pyramid scheme they'll get rich but you have no actual pyramid scheme and don't take anyone's money, then it's not fraud and shouldn't be banned in my opinion. But it is a lie.

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

#359

Post by UberFly »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #282
wmf wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Twitter will become more popular and influential now that it's banned. It could be the place to find out what the government doesn't want you to know.

Back in 2020, an acquaintance of mine started ranting to me about covid when I wished her a happy Chinese new year. She was at pains to point out that she got her information from unofficial sources.

This makes very little sense.

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

#360

Post by JumpCrisscross »

EnigmaFlare wrote: post #358
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> giving people this freedom means giving them the freedom to lie as well. I agree that we can debate specific exceptions We can. But we don't and never have. Anyone arguing for the freedom to lie without consequence is off the deep end. There has never been a society that doesn't punish lying and fraud. (What constitutes a lie is a deeper question.) > even if you think something is a ‘truth’, what you perceive as a…

Fraud isn't just lying, it also has to be for some sort of personal gain, typically financial. You're taking their money too. If you tell people that if they invest in your pyramid scheme they'll get rich but you have no actual pyramid scheme and don't take anyone's money, then it's not fraud and shouldn't be banned in my opinion. But it is a lie.

> Fraud isn't just lying, it also has to be for some sort of personal gain

One, not true. If a real estate agent sells you a house based on a bunch of lies and somehow forgets to charge a commission, they're still punished.

Two, you're still drawing criteria per which speech is punished.

Post reply on HN