Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky • Hacker News Board

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

#721

Post by luckylion » Sun, Sep 01, 2024, 5:15 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #587

luckylion wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The threats were themselves due to failing to follow a court order. To the individual representatives of a company? That's very rare, and not common like you make it sound. "The company you're representing in this legal process hasn't complied with my orders so I will have you personally arrested".

There are various accounts on Twitter which were being investigated etc. for criminal misconduct, Twitter was given a court order to block those accounts. I have no idea if that order was itself justified (IANAL and I don't speak Brazilian) but the orders were given by someone with authority to give them. Twitter refused the order, which means that Twitter is interfering with the legal process in Brazil. This sounds…

I can't think of any country I'd consider having a strong rule of law that would start arresting employees for the actions of their companies that they themselves have no say in.

Effectively, the judge makes it impossible for X to defend itself in court because he'll just have anyone arrested who tries. That's not something you'll find in the developed world these days.

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

#722

Post by verdverm » Sun, Sep 01, 2024, 5:19 PM UTC

CleanRoomClub wrote: post #666

Retr0id wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my favourite thing about it, really. It's very interesting at the technical level, but regular users simply do not need to care about any of that. They're adopting it anyway because it works . Most other "interesting protocol" projects are used exclusively by interesting-protocol enthusiasts.

Are regular users adopting it? I’d never even heard of BlueSky before this thread.

Yes, lots of artists, teachers, econ, and NAFO. The British and Brazilians have had major influx over political spats with Musk

Major news orgs now have accounts too

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

#723

Post by blackeyeblitzar » Sun, Sep 01, 2024, 5:20 PM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #709

throwadobe wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boiled down to X not taking down accounts associated with individuals with outstanding warrants who were inciting violence. Brazilian law requires X to do so.

The problem with Elon is that he's decided to pick and choose which countries he will comply with local legislation on, and which ones he won't. So India, Turkey, he did. Brazil, he didn't. Maybe the Supreme Court in Brazil is "wrong" and "corrupt" where legislators in India and Turkey are not, but knowing a fair bit about all three countries, I doubt very much that to be the case. So then it's a business decision --…

It’s a question of what is legal in each country. The censorship orders in Australia and India and Turkey complied with local laws so X stuck to their policy of following them. I detest censoring and authoritarianism in general, but X has publicly stated their policy is to comply with laws in each area.

One thing I’ll mention: after Musk acquired X in 2022, they were engaged in a lawsuit against the government of India in 2023 to fight censorship orders, that they ultimately lost (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-66083645). Not that it matters because India ended up passing various regulations (legally) that give their agencies various powers to censor.

Note that in Brazil, no new legislation or constitutional amendment was passed that would give this one Supreme Court justice this power to censor, ban, or arrest. Also note that the orders aren’t from the Supreme Court but one person sitting on it, Alexandre de Moraes.

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

#724

Post by verdverm » Sun, Sep 01, 2024, 5:21 PM UTC

nebula8804 wrote: post #658

energy123 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a social network like X/BlueSky but it uses a community notes style algorithm to decide what content to show me instead of raw engagement. Should get rid of the trolls as Paul Graham wants to happen.

What happens when Community Notes gets "gamed" like what supposedly happens sometimes on ... Community Notes ? One example can be that there is a mass attempt at pushing some viewpoint, it may not stick long term but it sticks for the duration of time the content is viewed by the most amount of people. Kind of like how upvote bots mess with Reddit.

It will be built on the labeller tech aiui, so there can be many community notes providers and systems, with users deciding which they want to follow

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

#725

Post by ziml77 » Sun, Sep 01, 2024, 5:23 PM UTC

yazzku wrote: post #695

presentation wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but following this logic you can’t hold anyone responsible for any negative externalities of their business since nobody can solely be in control. That’s not the world I want to encourage.

"externalities" is precisely the kind of word used by those who evade responsibility.

They would never use that word because it acknowledges that there are impacts that aren't accounted for in the costs to them.

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

#726

Post by verdverm » Sun, Sep 01, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #670

jazzyjackson wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

The answer is that the government won't have many levels to pull to censor content on the internet. I think that people are are celebrating the ban of X, and moving to decentralized platforms, forgot that the whole point of decentralization is to make censorship difficult. When you move to bluesky, you just support an even more free version of twitter.

Freer from both govt and corporate controls

Feed (algo) and moderation services are choices at the individual user level

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

#727

Post by tootie » Sun, Sep 01, 2024, 5:26 PM UTC

throwaway48476 wrote: post #661

tootie wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a stretch. They could have decided twitter was non compliant and started treating them a little less gently but would they order content be removed or issue fines or some other direct punishment? Probably not.

This is a failure of imagination. https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/27/schumer-intelligence-ag...

Yeah, this article is really very imaginative.

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

#728

Post by throwadobe » Sun, Sep 01, 2024, 5:28 PM UTC

netbioserror wrote: post #698

throwadobe wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can "be from Brazil" and still not understand the matter. Legal decisions are not a matter of "I agree" or "I disagree". They are a matter of law and facts. How exactly was the judge's decision here not in accordance with the law? I'm not "a part of the government base" and I happen to think this decision was lawful. Don't assume everyone who disagrees with you is doing so for political reasons. It would be too s…

Laws are not de facto ethical or morally good on account of being laws.

I never said they were, but the judge isn't wrong for deciding on legality rather than morality.

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

#729

Post by throwadobe » Sun, Sep 01, 2024, 5:28 PM UTC

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #723

insane_dreamer wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Elon is that he's decided to pick and choose which countries he will comply with local legislation on, and which ones he won't. So India, Turkey, he did. Brazil, he didn't. Maybe the Supreme Court in Brazil is "wrong" and "corrupt" where legislators in India and Turkey are not, but knowing a fair bit about all three countries, I doubt very much that to be the case. So then it's a business decision --…

It’s a question of what is legal in each country. The censorship orders in Australia and India and Turkey complied with local laws so X stuck to their policy of following them. I detest censoring and authoritarianism in general, but X has publicly stated their policy is to comply with laws in each area. One thing I’ll mention: after Musk acquired X in 2022, they were engaged in a lawsuit against the government of Ind…

[flagged]

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

#730

Post by insane_dreamer » Sun, Sep 01, 2024, 5:30 PM UTC

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #723

insane_dreamer wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Elon is that he's decided to pick and choose which countries he will comply with local legislation on, and which ones he won't. So India, Turkey, he did. Brazil, he didn't. Maybe the Supreme Court in Brazil is "wrong" and "corrupt" where legislators in India and Turkey are not, but knowing a fair bit about all three countries, I doubt very much that to be the case. So then it's a business decision --…

It’s a question of what is legal in each country. The censorship orders in Australia and India and Turkey complied with local laws so X stuck to their policy of following them. I detest censoring and authoritarianism in general, but X has publicly stated their policy is to comply with laws in each area. One thing I’ll mention: after Musk acquired X in 2022, they were engaged in a lawsuit against the government of Ind…

Moraes was granted that authority by the Supreme Court, so it is legal. Whether it's right or wrong is a different question, but Moraes' actions are not "illegal".

Moraes does seem to be acting like an unaccountable little dictator in his fiefdom, which is dangerous. But then again Elon acts like an unaccountable little dictator in his fiefdom, which is also dangerous, so I don't really mind that X is getting banned. I'd feel completely differently if it were Mastodon or even some other commercial network over which a single person doesn't have an iron grip.