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WhatsApp is back online in Brazil

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Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil

#121
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "left-wing conservatives" mean?

maybe the same as right-wing liberals, that is, complete nonsense.

If you try to think out of the U.S. politics box where labels are strictly enforced, it make a lot of sense. The communist party in italy during the 60s and 70s was pretty much the epitome of left-wing conservatism.

Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil

#123
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, WhatsApp is not just refusing to comply - they can't comply, since they don't retain message data. In addition, now that all messages are encrypted end to end, it will be impossible for them to comply in the future.

Well, if they just had responded to the judge order explain that or explaining anything, maybe the judge would consider it. We came to this point because whatsapp do not exist as a company in Brazil and simply ignored the court order. Know they probably considered such orders may happen again and decided to respond to the order.

WhatsApp have testified about this before the Brazilian Congressional Committee on Cyber Crimes. There's no chance the judge isn't aware of it.

Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil

#124
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is a fair comparison. Facebook isn't for free expression, they are for their business. The Brazilian Gov can be questioned in the Justice System, but doing so against "Freedom". Facebook dubious position about the right to be informed and the desire to control the information we access is a greater menace to freedom of expression than any ignorant Brazilian lower judge.

Every business is there for themselves. But laws or rulings blocking access to any business are anti-freedom. It's pretty simple. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons that overcome that. But not with a simple communication channel.

I don't know in which country you live, but I am very happy we have rulings here in Germany blocking access to businesses if those businesses are not following the law. WhatsApp, even if a US based company, is defacto providing a service in Brazil, it means they have to follow Brazilian laws. Dura Lex Sed Lex. You have more context on the other submission[0] showing that WhatsApp had way enough time to take the requests of the judge into account and act on them. They preferred to go the "we are too big to be shut down" way, which is not the way the law works and then complain about freedom and democracy.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11614116

Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil

#125
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge difference between "the government of Brazil denying everyone the freedom to communicate the way they want" and "facebook not auto-linking to a competitor's site in a chat program." You're comparing a government making communication through a specific (and popular) channel illegal, and a company not providing a link to a website as they send your message to your recipient. I know Hacker News enjoys ge…

Facebook/WhatsApp is trying to have it both ways. Either it's a for profit private company (and it can do things like that), or it's an important communication medium for a democracy (and access should be open). When it comes to blocking telegram, Facebook/WhatsApp wants to be the provate for profit company. When some judge blocks WhatsApp, suddenly they're an important service for a democracy.

Facebook refuses to cooperate with German authorities when it comes to investigating and prosecuting death threats through their platform, while at the same time, they want to do advertising business in Germany. They'd simply like to have all the money and none of the responsibility and accountability.

Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil

#126
Facebook once banned me for 24h just for sending my friend a link (via messenger) to animgif containing female boobs. (together with ban FB expired all API access tokens of my apps) Zuckerberg positioning himself as champion of democracy and unrestricted communication is ridiculous.

Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the government, it's the justice. We are a republic. And we have laws. Ignoring a court order is illegal here (and I think it's illegal on most civilized countries). The problem is the company ignoring the orders. All they have to do is explain to the judge why they can't follow that order. And they refuse to do so.

Sounds a lot like the people who said "All Apple has to do is unlock one phone". Again, I'm no expert in Brazil, but I suspect that creating a legal presence in the country (e.g., by answering/defending the claim) gives the government too much leverage.

Then don’t operate in the country.

Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil

#128
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge difference between "the government of Brazil denying everyone the freedom to communicate the way they want" and "facebook not auto-linking to a competitor's site in a chat program." You're comparing a government making communication through a specific (and popular) channel illegal, and a company not providing a link to a website as they send your message to your recipient. I know Hacker News enjoys ge…

For an apple to apple comparison, how about last year when Facebook promised to help Germany censor any criticism of their immigration policy under the guise of 'stopping Hate Speech'? Facebook aren't taking a stance against censorship here. They are taking the same stance they always did: Pro-Facebook.

Hate speech has always been a violation of Facebook's ToS. The "deal" with Germany was simply that Facebook agreed to be better at actually enforcing their own terms.

Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil

#129
post #56
post #46

> the idea that everyone in Brazil can be denied the freedom to communicate the way they want is very scary in a democracy Says the person (in name of the company, I assume) whose company blocks things they don't "like", such as messages containing telegram.org or telegram.me[1]. Now Facebook is not a democracy and they can block and censor pretty much any message they like, but now they go on to tell Brazil how it s…

That's fucking dodgy/unacceptable. I know they did this for another site that gave money to people for spamming their connections with links to their website, which I guess is borderline acceptable. In the case of telegram though, there is no redeeming circumstance of any kind, they're just censoring for a business advantage [without it being directly visible to the user, which is even worse], and that's just really…

> censoring

Classifying a recipient receiving a message containing exactly what the sender sent as 'censorship' just because they don't auto-link it is taking the word to new heights of rhetorical meaninglessness. Dodgy and scummy, sure. Mildly inconvenient for the recipient, definitely. Censorship, no.

Re: WhatsApp is back online in Brazil

#130
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge difference between "the government of Brazil denying everyone the freedom to communicate the way they want" and "facebook not auto-linking to a competitor's site in a chat program." You're comparing a government making communication through a specific (and popular) channel illegal, and a company not providing a link to a website as they send your message to your recipient. I know Hacker News enjoys ge…

Facebook does much more then that... they also hide information by using their "smart" sorting algo of stories/posts, for example.

The API is open for everyone. If you want a feed with each and every post from your friends and the pages you follow, you can build one yourself.
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