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

Brazilian court orders suspension of X

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 388 posts

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#361

Post by tim333 »

foinker wrote: post #256
perihelions wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- "How come I I'm now banned from reading what Zelensky, Kasparov, Yann LeCun, and thousands of others world leaders have to say?" This is the single most important thing about tech censorship I wish more HN'ers would figure out on their own. It may be narrated as a fight between corporations and judges, but in addition to all of that, it's ordinary individuals' rights on the line. "To suppress free speech is a doubl…

I think we should all just accept that these platforms are not suitable for the purposes of being a global bulletin board/library of human activity as long as they are owned and operated by private corporations who only care about your inviolable rights to speak freely when it suits them. There are other ways besides twitter to see what Zelensky says.

I disagree. I think the platforms are ok if not without imperfections. HN is owned by a private corporation. Should you ban yourself from reading this as a result?

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#362

Post by jrflowers »

Wytwwww wrote: post #319
jrflowers wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My overall point is that there is little indication that this is some battle between good and evil or right and wrong. This is about a guy who faces no personal consequences whatsoever choosing to ignore court orders and a government penalizing his business for that choice. There is some speculation that maybe the judge is acting illegally but I haven’t seen anyone familiar with Brazilian constitutional law say that.…

> My overall point is that there is little indication that this is some battle between good and evil or right and wrong. I wouldn't necessarily use words like 'good' and 'evil' here but the fact that a judge can (arbitrarily ) impose a fairly large fine on any individual using a specific foreign website says everything I need to know about that country and its judicial system. Genuinely curious how can someone defend…

> judge can (arbitrarily) impose a fairly large fine on any individual using a specific foreign website says everything I need to know about that country and its judicial system

This is where you are inserting “arbitrarily” as both a statement of fact and moral wrongness.

Every single court in every single country has the ability to issue court orders on businesses that operate in that country. It is true in the US, China, the UK, North Korea, France, Australia, Myanmar, Spain, etc.

Name a country! That country has judges that can do things that you do not like. Even things regarding your personal definition of acceptable limitations on freedoms, speech included. And it can seem arbitrary to you.

Your issue is not with Brazil’s court, your issue is with courts in general. Except for…

> I assure you I don't really care for Musk or most of the things he does and (especially) says. That's entirely besides the point.

This is a thread about Twitter being blocked. Is there an any other action taken by the Brazilian supreme court that you have an issue with? If not, this is not a concern about the Brazilian constitution, this is a petulant billionaire screaming “dictator!” loud enough from his soapbox that even people that aren’t in his regular retinue of credulous followers fall for it.

> So a government censoring it's political opponents is fine as long as they are using a platform owned by a rich "libertarian" jerk?

If the judge is following the law, and his only actual sin is pissing off some crybaby libertarian for having to comply with the law, then the judge has committed no sin at all.

Anyway all of that aside, all of this actually stems from Elon Musk refusing to comply with an investigation and court orders around an actual attempted coup in that country. Musk’s credulous supporters will either say “that’s not true because Elon posted that it’s about something else” or “actually the coup should have happened because Musk said the current government is bad and we should support undemocratic government overthrows because Elon says they are good”

His side of this is literally nonsense. It is defended by unserious people.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#363

Post by jauntywundrkind »

ffsm8 wrote: post #354
leereeves wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harriet Tubman was a criminal too. Sometimes being a criminal by defying an unjust law is the best thing you can do.

Civil disobedience is something an individual can can do. That's something very different to this situation. The company isn't a person, the CEO could do civil disobedience and order that the company doesn't comply. But that'd be the same as exiting the market, as the government will be forced to take action anyway. And then they'd likely go to jail, achieving nothing. You can't really do civil disobedience while eve…

I struggle to imagine how you would arrive at such a cruel & disturbing allegation, that corporations organizations & institutions must be morally blind.

Real life counter example, Leica Freedom Train, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leica_Freedom_Train

Overt disobedience versus subversive disobedience can have a risk. Yeah, don't do things that will eliminate your entity from the world. But often you should be willing to take some kind of an L (loss). The best time to fight injustice is as early as possible; push back if you can.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#364

Post by Georgelemental »

meiraleal wrote: post #348
Georgelemental wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not forced to use his platform if you don’t like it.

Yes and I don't use it but he is forced to respond to court orders :)

Yes he is, just like Sophie Scholl. Power-mad tyrants tend to do that to people :)

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#366

Post by silverliver »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #149
prvc wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He appears to be really mad.

Elon is yeah, he's posting AI images of the judge on twitter like it's a macho move.

Mocking a siting emotional judge who is used to having his way _definitely_ qualifies as a macho move in my book. Whether it is a move that elon can afford, we still don't know.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#367

Post by silverliver »

troupo wrote: post #87
IncreasePosts wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That came after the judge's order to block the accounts. That is a secondary issue, not the primary one. On that topic, can you speak to the judge's orders to freeze the bank accounts of X's legal representative, even after she had resigned? What's the deal there?

Musk is happy to comply with blocking anything and anyone when it suits him: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41404534

Sure but that does not answer GP's question.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#368

Post by silverliver »

diegoholiveira wrote: post #90
marcellus777 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are owned by Musk. I know that is too simple, but that is relatively common in Brazil (to easily link companies because they share owners or shareholders)

It's not common at all. Musk is shareholder of Starlink, but there are many others. This is kind of thing is only used in cause of fraud like a person who puts other company in name of a third party to avoid fines. It also shows foreign investors that investing in Brazil is unsafe.

This is the part that is most interesting to me. Sure, judge will eventually get his way but the secondary collateral damage to Brazil is going to be significant. I wonder if the judge had considered this in his ruling.

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#369

Post by mikrotikker »

mrtksn wrote: post #353
mikrotikker wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you going to prove that TikTok is an intelligence and Psyop arm the PLA? The CCP does not respond to discovery in court cases of adversary nations.

If don't have any proof why block it then? Is this North Korea? Anyway, if the US has suspicion of PLA working with TikTok and IMHO the should be suspicious, they can regulate how data is collected or how algorithms work and require mechanism that allows that be verified.

Because you'll never be able to prove it, but the proof is arguably in it's effects... whether it's riling up domestic activists to block naval operations in home ports, messaging your entire userbase in-country to DDoS elected representatives or drive political violence through mis/disinformation . I think the entire western world should unify to push TikTok out and at the very least ban all types of "recommendation" algorithms on foreign and domestic social media applications. Free market economics be damned pull out the regulation stick and go whacking

Re: Brazilian court orders suspension of X

#370

Post by mikrotikker »

bsnsxd wrote: post #358
mikrotikker wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're essentially saying that they don't want the US 1st amendment imported into their state. So they should block it like they have and that be that. Poor bastards.

big stretch, this is only twitter, and with plenty of reasoning, history, and back and forward, where twitter has time after time ignored brazillian's court requests.

And why should Twitter recognize the Brazilian courts authority on speech?
Post reply on HN