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

Starlink Defies Order to Block X in Brazil

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 207 posts

Re: Starlink Defies Order to Block X in Brazil

#71

Post by diegoholiveira »

defrost wrote: post #31
piva00 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court orders for Twitter in Brazil were way more tame and based on judicial procedures than orders that Elon followed from Turkey and other less democratic countries. There's no visible rhyme or reason why he's fighting the Brazilian courts much harder than orders from other less democratic countries, something else is happening unrelated to free speech or any lip service he pays to.

> There's no visible rhyme or reason why .. Somebody made a case in an earlier thread (that I haven't had time to pursue) that Brazil has the largest lithium mining company (not fields or mines) with standing contracts in South America .. and they claimed that Musk wants to seed unrest | see Bolsonaro (or his party) back in to get a better deal on raw materials for his battery factories in Texas. That has a plausible…

Australians already own those lithium mines. The largest here in Brazil is very close to my hometown.

Re: Starlink Defies Order to Block X in Brazil

#72

Post by incrudible »

mschuster91 wrote: post #34
incrudible wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is far from a wasteland. Nothing that matters is exclusively on Bluesky, but a lot of it is on Twitter. The "old media" heavily relies on Twitter, too. Anger is a major driver of engagement on any medium, it's only natural that this shows through on Twitter. Alternative platforms appear to be more civil because they're islands of echo-chambers. The anger is still there, it's just directed at the more abstract…

> Alternative platforms appear to be more civil because they're islands of echo-chambers. The anger is still there, it's just directed at the more abstract out-group, rather than any individuals that are part of the conversation. I'd say there are less bots and Putin-financed "fifth column" groups around on the Twitter alternatives, and that is the key thing. The porn spammers that make up half of the "likes" notific…

To me, the real fifth column are the ones actively destroying all the values that are supposed to define "The Western world" in an attempt to save it, if only in name.

It's a mental shortcut to think that anyone who disagrees must've been influenced by some foreign power. Of course Russia picks up on dissent and attempts to amplify it, but it didn't create that dissent.

Re: Starlink Defies Order to Block X in Brazil

#73

Post by hereme888 »

olivierduval wrote: post #62
hereme888 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The judge is violating the constitution of his own country and engaging in censorship of political opponents.

Is X a bralizian institution ? I don't think so... so X has no right to oppose this decision ! If the judge decision is illegal, that's the problem of the brazilian political and law system, and of the brazilian People. But X is not a brazilian citizen AFAIK... so it either follow the rules, leave the country or is illegal. Moreover, when Starlink refuse to respect a court order, Starlink is although a problem (be it…

X did leave the country, but it won't leave the internet. It's up to Brazil to block them.

Re: Starlink Defies Order to Block X in Brazil

#74

Post by piva00 »

INTPenis wrote: post #44

Brazil should just sponsor their own fediverse nodes. But it's a lot easier to just block something in their national ISP. Complicated long term solutions are not interesting when they're trying to extort Elon for money.

> Complicated long term solutions are not interesting when they're trying to extort Elon for money.

There's no extortion, the fines are simply due to the company not following courts' decisions. The money itself is inconsequential, the fines are too low to be of any importance to the Brazilian government, they just want Elon to follow the law.

Or do you believe a company should have the power to be above the law in a jurisdiction they operate in?

Re: Starlink Defies Order to Block X in Brazil

#75

Post by fmajid »

cjpearson wrote: post #2

Is this a principled defense of free speech or a case of a man treating ostensibly independent companies as divisions of his personal conglomerate?

You will find Musk's pretend "free-speech absolutism" is highly selective, and only applies to far-right voices. He's repeatedly censored his critics and journalists on his platform.

Re: Starlink Defies Order to Block X in Brazil

#77

Post by fmajid »

hkt wrote: post #43
piva00 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court orders for Twitter in Brazil were way more tame and based on judicial procedures than orders that Elon followed from Turkey and other less democratic countries. There's no visible rhyme or reason why he's fighting the Brazilian courts much harder than orders from other less democratic countries, something else is happening unrelated to free speech or any lip service he pays to.

What's happening is clear: Elon doesn't like Lula, the Brazilian president. Lula is left wing: his predecessor was a Trump-esque idiot. I'd guess many of Lula's actual policies harm the Musk's material interests in some way, or are just things he doesn't like. It might literally just be that Musk has heard Lula is left wing and therefore wants to make life as hard as possible.

Judge Moraes has had his share of run-ins with Lula, and can hardly be described as a stooge for the Left. What he has been doing is go after Brazil's version of the Jan 6th insurrectionists, whom Musk is congenial to along with other far-right causes. As Germany showed, if you don't go after thugs when they are still in their inept beer-hall putsch phase, it is too late afterwards.

Re: Starlink Defies Order to Block X in Brazil

#78

Post by fmajid »

mrmlz wrote: post #30
malermeister wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it free speech when he banned a bunch of leftists for disagreeing with his views?

No (I have no idea who he has banned or not) but that sounds like a powertrip!

Not just leftists, but also journalists critical of him: https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/x-journalist-ban-elon-mus...

His so-called free-speech absolutism is a sham and he does not deserve the benefit of doubt on this.

Post reply on HN