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

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

#461

Post by amarcheschi »

hexage1814 wrote: post #408
Adrian_Ferreira wrote: post #287

I'm from Brazil and this judge is totally out of control. I agree that X needs to have a legal representative in Brazil, this is correct anywhere, but he threatened a fine of 200k and imprisonment to the person Musk appointed as representative if his stricture orders were not complied with. He threatened us to pay $9k in fines per day if we use VPN to access X. Unless you are part of the government base, it is diffic…

>but he threatened a fine of 200k and imprisonment to the person Musk appointed as representative if his stricture orders were not complied with Moraes essentially wanted a hostage. Executives of companies shouldn't be arrested for things they have no power over, such as content moderation. My guess is that Moraes wanted to force Musk's company to not have a legal representative in the country, because the moment you…

At the end of the day law will always be selectively enforced online since you literally cannot afford to pursue every single organization not compliant with the law. In fact, what happened with Twitter was something exceptional. Probably, many other organizations are breaking the same rule, but at the same time they're not as important as Twitter and it's not even worth prosecuting such cases

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

#462

Post by ryzvonusef »

Twitter is 'banned' in Pakistan for very similar reasons (requiring a local representative, requiring censorship, etc) under the guise of 'national security concerns'.

We are all still using it via VPN. We get all the govt related info from it, and no one is asking, how come the govt dept themselves are using twitter when it's banned?

No one will move to bluesky/threads/mastodon because as I said everyone is on twitter.

Afterall, if I want to know about the next road blockage or electricity outage, I know I need to go to twitter to check, where else would I go?

these are bullship tactics, but they seem to be working, and the internet is fracturing. It was nice while it lasted, but we will no loner have a 'world-wide' web, just national networks with passport controls on accessing external nets.

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

#463

Post by kelnos »

bad_user wrote: post #345
ikmckenz wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech is a general conception of human rights, not any one particular law. Governments can choose to respect (or not!) those rights, but the idea applies to everyone.

When it comes to human rights, unfortunately, the notion got perverted by USSR and its allies. The difference between the US and the rest of the world is that the US has the First Amendment, which it upholds. So, for example, in the US "hate speech" is not banned, and while inciting violence is banned, it must be literal incitement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_Stat... This is important, be…

> the US has the First Amendment, which it upholds [...] and while inciting violence is banned

So the US only upholds 1A when it decides it wants to. In other words, no, it doesn't really uphold it.

(And for the record, I'm mostly fine with that! I'm tired of this idea that absolute free speech is a thing, that people actually have it in large numbers, and that if they did, it would actually be a good thing.)

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

#464

Post by threeseed »

Hamuko wrote: post #415
threeseed wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one wants Instagram for Twitter It has about 200M MAU. So a lot of people clearly do want it.

How are the MAU counted for Threads, as the user accounts are the same exact as on Instagram?

The URLs are different (threads.net versus instagram.com).

So pretty easy to tell in the analytics which site the user is on.

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

#465

Post by kelnos »

supafastcoder wrote: post #139
toomuchtodo wrote: post #64

“Masterful gambit, sir.” (X is facing a deep decline in revenue, cutting its valuation from $44B to ~$12B [Musk’s stake is worth ~$7B], and Musk makes a choice that drives millions of users to an alternate site: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitters-revenue-collapses-84... )

I strongly believe the potential valuation and financial performance was not the primary motivation for Musk to buy Twitter, it’s simply a toy for a man worth $200+ billion.

Oh, true. But the problem is that Musk, rich has he is, can't run Twitter indefinitely without revenue (more than he's getting today, and it's likely declining). He needs it to perform financially if it's to continue to be a going concern.

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

#466

Post by kelnos »

WalterBright wrote: post #332
threeseed wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So he did sue the advertisers. And unless Musk has some extraordinary evidence it will be difficult to provide those advertisers colluded together to better themselves at the expense of other market participants. Especially when they aren't even in the same markets. Also if you think this situation is akin to a cartel god knows what you think of IMDB or the Michelin guide.

The linked documents describe the cartel and how it violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. It's not a difficult read.

Musk's lawyers "describing" something isn't evidence.

Given Musk's personality, I would not be the tiniest bit surprised if he's suing without any actual evidence, just because he's angry and because he can.

I mean, remember, this is the guy who tried to get out of buying Twitter, and then refused to pay out contractually-obligated packages to many of the former management team he fired. (I'm not the biggest fan in the world of golden parachutes, but this was pretty egregious.)

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

#467

Post by energy123 »

tliltocatl wrote: post #447
energy123 wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The algorithm would analyze the post's/user's likes. If a post/user is liked by people who often disagree, then boost the engagement of that post/user. If a post/user is liked by an echo chamber, then deboost it.

What you describe is a flamewar maintenance algorithm. I mean, it COULD work if all people were sound and reasonable, but that's obviously not the case. And being a flamewar battleground is probably not the goal of most platform owners either. Also, for many topics that are not politics you don't need disagreement for a productive discussion.

> I mean, it COULD work if all people were sound and reasonable, but that's obviously not the case.

But community notes works well. That's evidence that reasonableness emerges when you boost content that a diversity of people appreciate, regardless of whether people are sound and reasonable.

> What you describe is a flamewar maintenance algorithm.

Are you saying my idea will increase flamewars? I believe it should decrease flamewars, and that's why I want to see it implemented. Again I point to community notes. If a diversity of people like content, it's probably level-headed, and that's why community notes works so well.

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

#468

Post by kshri24 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #328
nox101 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so strange for you to blame this on Musk. Twitter was already super partisan long before he took it over

> Twitter was already super partisan long before he took it over Sure. But Elon changed teams. He used to be bipartisan. But he chose a champion in the aftermath of Covid and--by the looks of it--he's chosen a bad one. (In an alternate universe where Musk stuck to what he's good at, I could see the entire Artemis programme being delegated to SpaceX and a bipartisan adoption of Tesla as America's EV standard bearer. I…

[flagged]

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

#469

Post by kshri24 »

excalibur wrote: post #401
crossroadsguy wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Musk stuck to what he's good at Right. And that is?

Occasional well-thought-out, ambitious, and positive talking points combined with a whole lot of keeping his mouth shut seemed to work pretty well for him.

[flagged]

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

#470

Post by bobbruno »

jimbob45 wrote: post #306
Adrian_Ferreira wrote: post #287

I'm from Brazil and this judge is totally out of control. I agree that X needs to have a legal representative in Brazil, this is correct anywhere, but he threatened a fine of 200k and imprisonment to the person Musk appointed as representative if his stricture orders were not complied with. He threatened us to pay $9k in fines per day if we use VPN to access X. Unless you are part of the government base, it is diffic…

Do you not have some sort of expedited appeals process in Brazil to short circuit maverick judges like this?

This is a Justice from the brazilian Supreme Court, they are the highest position in the court system, and allowed to make individual rulings and apply sanctions like this.

These decisions hold until ratified or rejected by the court as a whole (which they all eventually will, but it's not fast) or successfully appealed. Appeals can be made only to another Justice or to the court as a whole - no expedited process, because there's no higher authority.

Besides, who'd make the appeal? X has no representation in Brazil (that's why it's been suspended), and there seems to be consensus on that specific point, of legal representation being a requirement by law, so the general attorney or other officials will not question the main decision.

The side decisions are a different matter, that about VPN apps and app stores had been withdrawn. The fine for accessing X is more controversial: hardly enforceable (for just browsing, at least), ongoing hot debate in the country about it being within the Justice's power.

In fact, the Court will probably expedite a whole court judgement on that, and apparently there's no consensus across the Justices on that.

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