Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours • Hacker News Board

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#41

Post by NN88 » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 4:51 AM UTC

necessity wrote: post #10

From someone living in Brazil, this article is a clickbait full of misinformation. First off, we are nowhere near "shutting down social web". WhatsApp was shutdown by a court order because they did not comply with a subpoena to hand over information from a user in July and August. I recently submitted a link with a local (Brazilian) newspaper explaining the issue. >If Brazil’s conservative Congress gets its way, they…

>First off, we are nowhere near "shutting down social web". WhatsApp was shutdown by a court order because they did not comply with a subpoena to hand over information from a user in July and August. I recently submitted a link with a local (Brazilian) newspaper explaining the issue.

You make it sound like thats ok?

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#42

Post by NN88 » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 4:54 AM UTC

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #5

The news is misrepresenting what is actually happening. A judge ruled for a 48 hour ban of WhatsApp from telcos to try to coerce WhatsApp into releasing private chat information for an ongoing criminal investigation (wild guess: they want information from politically exposed actors due to the recent corruption investigations). There are precedents, and that's a tactic local judges are using to try to get cooperation…

I'm not understanding your clarification. It still seems like a ridiculous reason to shut down whatsapp

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#43

Post by tetrep » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 5:04 AM UTC

ex3ndr wrote: post #26

Right now we ( https://actor.im/br/ ) are trying to launch free and open alternative to WhatsApp/Telegram with Open Source community in Brazil.

why not textsecure? it's free and open source.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#44

Post by VanillaLime » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 5:05 AM UTC

zeofig wrote: post #40

necessity wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People voluntarily use WhatsApp because they consider it the best service. If it starts replacing "sugar" with "salt" I'm sure people will voluntarily start using something else. What should not happen is government force you to use something else.

Before, I was worried about facebook spying on me, but then I just asked all my friends to switch to spiderwizard (or whatever it's called) and now everything's fine. Meanwhile, in reality...

. . . my friends didn't want to switch, so instead I simply stopped using Facebook and started using Telegram/email/SMS/IRC/any of a dozen other communication methods to talk with my friends?

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#45

Post by cthalupa » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 5:06 AM UTC

rmdoss wrote: post #19

Can confirm whatsapp is down for some friends in Brazil. However, the real reason is not for what Techcrunch is saying. The issue is that WhatsApp didn't want to cooperate with the federal police and release chat information from some criminals. According to some sources there, they followed all due process and WhatsApp ignored. As a retaliation, to show that WhatsApp has to comply with Brazilian local laws when stor…

>As a retaliation, to show that WhatsApp has to comply with Brazilian local laws when storing data from Brazilians using the service in Brazil, they banned WhatsApp for 48 hrs.

Why must WhatsApp comply with Brazilian laws? They have no offices there.

If I run, say, a porn site, hosted in the US, as a US company, is it my responsibility to prevent users in a country where pornography is illegal from using my site? Do I have any duty to comply with said country requesting the identity and viewing history of citizens living in it?

Of course not. That country can certainly block my site if their laws allow them to, but the idea that whatsapp /has/ to comply is ridiculous.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#46

Post by HaseebR7 » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 5:10 AM UTC

What's up with capitalizing every first letter ? I thought "Whatsapp Tonight" is some new service Whatsapp is providing that I didn't know of.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#47

Post by newman314 » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 5:12 AM UTC

reubenmorais wrote: post #3

Telegram reports 1.000.000 new users 4 hours after the block started, 1.500.000 new users 1 hour ago: https://twitter.com/telegram

Ugh. I wish Signal had the UX to compete with Telegram so that people would use Signal instead.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#48

Post by ex3ndr » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 5:15 AM UTC

tetrep wrote: post #43

ex3ndr wrote: post #26

Right now we ( https://actor.im/br/ ) are trying to launch free and open alternative to WhatsApp/Telegram with Open Source community in Brazil.

why not textsecure? it's free and open source.

Text secure is a cool application, but they are not focused on people. Very different goals of projects.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#49

Post by NN88 » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 5:17 AM UTC

newman314 wrote: post #47

reubenmorais wrote: post #3

Telegram reports 1.000.000 new users 4 hours after the block started, 1.500.000 new users 1 hour ago: https://twitter.com/telegram

Ugh. I wish Signal had the UX to compete with Telegram so that people would use Signal instead.

is it that much better?

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#50

Post by aianus » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 5:17 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #32

gjrlkgrelmgr wrote: post #2

If you go ahead and read the article, you'll realize that it's more about Facebook complaining their business will be more heavily regulated in Brazil than outright censorship.

That and that Facebook may have to comply with valid court orders. How outrageous a judge telling what Facebook should do.

A judge in a corrupt third-world country can say whatever he wants, I don't think Facebook should blindly be following court orders from overseas.