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Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

221 points by NN88 11y ago

gjrlkgrelmgr 11y ago
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.
- rbanffy 11y ago
  That and that Facebook may have to comply with valid court orders. How outrageous a judge telling what Facebook should do.
  - aianus 11y ago
    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.
    - Tomte 11y ago
      "Overseas" in that context would be the US, right? :-) We have exactly that problem with Facebook and other big US companies in Europe (Uber comes to mind): they act in Europe (and do damage here), but hide in the US. Oftentimes not even replying to court orders, because hey, what can a lowly regional court judge from Germany do, right? If you want to play here, comply with our laws. If you don't, then don't be surprised if your business is shut down. I can totally understand the attitude of the Brazilian judge, even if the result is terrible. But suddenly he is paid attention! Chapeau!
      - aianus 11y ago
        Why should a lowly regional judge in Germany (or the US for that matter) be allowed to meddle with a national or global communications network? There must be millions of judges in the world, many of whom are corrupt, power-hungry, or just plain stupid. It would be silly for Facebook, Google, etc. to blindly obey each one of their ramblings. Edit: s/shut down/meddle with/
        Tomte 11y ago
        We make sure our justice system is not corrupt. You don't get to ignore our laws, just because you conveniently hint to corruption. If you feel our country is too corrupt to make business in, great, stay away. Why should we allow extra-legal, non-elected company managers from abroad to trump our constitutional, legal and parliamentary-approved laws?
        aianus 11y ago
        I'm sure you believe your country's laws are fair, just, constitutional, and parliamentary-approved. However, so do Thai people believe about their laws against insulting their King. Do you think Facebook should be in the business of censoring posts insulting the Thai King just because some judge there gives them a court order? I maintain that Facebook should, in general, ignore foreign court orders and just do what's right. At the risk, of course, of being blocked entirely in that country.
        Tomte 11y ago
        If they want to do business there, sure. The alternative stands: get out of the country. You maintain that Facebook should, in general, follow your legal system. Do you believe that America and only America is "fair, just, constitutional, and parliamentary-approved"? That's basically American exceptionalism at its best.
        msh 11y ago
        So if the US wants info on users of a German app who have no servers or offices in the US it should just give it to them? Even if the offense they are suspected of is not illegal in Germany? My point is that Brazil should follow legal procedures and have a American judge issue a supena. That's what a MLAT is for.
        germanier 11y ago
        I'm sure the Brazilian judge followed Brazilian legal procedures. That's the entire point of being a Brazilian judge. There might be other means to achieve a goal but that doesn't mean what happened isn't legal. In your example, if that German app was targeted to US users (e.g. by localization and marketing) then yes, they should follow US laws. That's a test German courts use to determine whether they have jurisdiction in the digital world and I think that's fair and should be applied in the other direction as well. If they don't want to or can't (e.g. by contractual obligations or German law) they shouldn't act surprised if the US doesn't allow US business to trade with them.
    - rbanffy 11y ago
      The same way that, when I open an office in the US I must live with a series of arbitrary laws I may not agree with (or that horrify me), when you open an office in a corrupt third-world country, you are supposed to obey the law or suffer the consequences.
reubenmorais 11y ago
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 https://twitter.com/telegram
- adrtessier 11y ago
  John Gilmore's oft quoted in these cases: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." When, if ever, will politicians learn this? Will it take a generation that has grown up on the Internet and watched this to make them realize these actions are pretty futile?
  - roymurdock 11y ago
    This is exactly what the judge wants. He is trying to get Whatsapp to comply with his request. What could be a better way to do this then to drive millions of users to a competitor? The longer Whatsapp holds out, the more users leave the service, possibly for good. Thing is, this better be a really important case. Because if users migrate and stay on Telegram, it could be much harder for Brazilian courts to get records in the future.
    - adrtessier 11y ago
      > Because if users migrate and stay on Telegram, it could be much harder for Brazilian courts to get records in the future. Yeah, that's the way that I see it. I don't believe this is the right kind of gambit to be playing. Not only would I expect Telegram to be even more likely than Facebook to tell the judge to shove the subpoena up his arse, he has escalated a war with a company that often is very good at fighting all of its battles on its own terms. I am now very curious who the subpoena was going after.
    - moxie 11y ago
      > Thing is, this better be a really important case. Because if users migrate and stay on Telegram, it could be much harder for Brazilian courts to get records in the future. Why would it be harder? Telegram has the entire plaintext message history for every message all of their users have ever sent, WhatsApp doesn't. It's much easier for Telegram to comply, not harder.
hcarvalhoalves 11y ago
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 from international private companies. This is the actual fact, but the article is conflating that with Marco Civil and other regulatory attempts that have nothing to do with this particular court ruling. TL;DR TechCrunch publishes unchecked, alarmist news.
- ank_the_elder 11y ago
  That sounds like a more interesting story - do you have any links to learn more about it? (even if they are in Portuguese) Thanks!
  - hcarvalhoalves 11y ago
    It's linked in the article: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2015/12/1719934-justica-determina-bloqueio-do-whatsapp-em-todo-brasil-por-48-horas.shtml http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2015/12/1719934-justica...
    - ank_the_elder 11y ago
      (automatic translation, highlight mine) "[...] Folha learned that justice in São Bernardo do Campo wants WhatsApp stay out of air in the country due to a criminal investigation. The authorities investigating the case obtained legal authorization for the WhatsApp broke the confidentiality of data exchanged via investigated by the application, but the company did not release the requested information. The blockade would be a reprisal. In February, a similar case occurred in Piauí, when a judge also ruled WhatsApp lock in Brazil. The aim was to force the company that owns the application to cooperate with state police investigations related to cases of pedophilia. The decision was suspended by a judge of Piaui Court after analyzing writ of mandamus filed by the telcos. [...]"
- 11y ago
graeme 11y ago
That's crazy. I was in Brazil for a month. everybody was on whatsapp. Facebook a distant second for message volume. SMS wasn't even on the radar.
tabacof 11y ago
This is insane, this judge must be on a power trip. WhatsApp is now part of Brazilian social life and economy. Everyone here is part of many groups of friends, family or workmates, that is where most instant communication happens. In my company, our deployment engineers, who usually are on very remote places with bad and unreliable internet, rely on WhatsApp. I'm not saying this is the best practice, but this is simply the way Brazil works right now. Even the mobile phone companies offer plans with free WhatsApp connection, because that is what most people here care about. Another example: In Brazil, 9 in 10 doctors use WhatsApp to talk to patients (http://www.cityam.com/230372/digital-health-wearables-and-apps-9-in-10-brazilian-doctors-use-whatsapp-to-talk-to-patients http://www.cityam.com/230372/digital-health-wearables-and-ap...). To disregard all the people and businesses that rely on WhatsApp for whatever reason is unbelievable. But this is not without precedent, once another Brazilian judge blocked YouTube for a whole day because it refused to take down a celebrity video. This says a lot about the over-sized, inefficient, and stupid state we have, always meddling and intervening.
- andreyf 11y ago
  Seems to me like it might be WhatsApp that's on a power trip. What would an American judge do if WhatsApp were to ignore a lawful subpoena?
  - msh 11y ago
    But its not a lawful subpoena. What's app is a America n company, so it should only respond to American supoenas. Just as a American judge should not be able to order a Brazilian company to do anything before having it go though the Brazilian courts.
    - bjt 11y ago
      A Brazilian company with a presence in the US could absolutely be subject to a US court order without any court in Brazil needing to be involved. You don't get to dodge the laws of a country you're operating in just because your HQ is in some other country.
rccrv 11y ago
It wasn't Congress that decided that. It is a single judge that gave an order to block the service for 48 hours. It can be reversed if another judge decides the "liminar" (I don't know how to say this in English, it's a temporary decision) shouldn't been given.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  "Injunction", perhaps?
  - rccrv 11y ago
    That is a good equivalent and it gives some idea of what happened for those familiar with the concept. Thanks for the clarification.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
bbarn 11y ago
This is the place the Olympics are going to be this summer. I can't help but hope the people use it as a stage to protest, but would imagine the media would largely ignore it.
necessity 11y ago
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’re going to take down the entire social web as we know it, with bills circulating through the legislature to criminalize posting social media content and to allow the government to spy on its citizens. Conservatives are not the only ones trying to censor the internet in here, absolutely every politician wants it. >It’s an about-face from last year, when President Dilma Rousseff approved Marco Civil, a groundbreaking Internet “Bill of Rights”, as a response to the Snowden revelations that the NSA was spying on Brazil. The landmark bill, Brazil’s first internet legislation, protects net neutrality, user privacy and freedom of speech. On the contrary! Marco Civil threatens user privacy (more below), and the "net neutrality" part has lead to just the same that happened today: Mobile companies were forced to shutdown their "free WhatsApp and Facebook" plans, making millions get blocked from WhatsApp[4]. Anyway, back to the privacy issues, article 11 of the text[1] is the more worrying one. Some highlights: § 2º A autoridade policial ou administrativa poderá requerer cautelarmente que os registros de conexão sejam guardados por prazo superior ao previsto no caput. § 4º O provedor responsável pela guarda dos registros deverá manter sigilo em relação ao requerimento previsto no § 2º It says basically that police can require records of visited CONTENT without a court order and the ISP is required to supply that without informing the user. Somewhere else in the text it forces ISPs to store user history for a year. If the text really wanted to protect user privacy it would say something about cryptography, which isn't mentioned anywhere in the text. Article 2 says there must be a "social purpose" for websites and that gov. may take websites down if it feels it doesn't serve the public interest. Brazilian govt. already has a history of censoring YouTube and Facebook videos involving politicians, judges or celebrities[5][2][3]. [1] http://www.camara.gov.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra?codteor=912989&filename=PL+2126/20 http://www.camara.gov.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra?... [2] http://oglobo.globo.com/tecnologia/para-nao-sair-do-ar-no-brasil-facebook-remove-posts-ofensivos-10244954 http://oglobo.globo.com/tecnologia/para-nao-sair-do-ar-no-br... [3] http://www.conjur.com.br/2012-ago-08/google-retirar-ar-video-ofensivo-vereador-pena-multa http://www.conjur.com.br/2012-ago-08/google-retirar-ar-video... [4] http://gizmodo.uol.com.br/tim-claro-twitter-gratis/ http://gizmodo.uol.com.br/tim-claro-twitter-gratis/ [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PYQktiGLhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PYQktiGLhw
speeder 11y ago
I am from Brazil, and although bizarre decisions happened before, I can say that this time they actually went through with it, and I can't talk to my psychologist (I only communicate with her with WhatsApp, I never considered that the government would ever actually shut it down). As for the article it is one of the most bizarrely biased articles I ever read, spouting some information that are outright lies. Example: it says that Marco Civil law was an example of the congress favouring internet openness, that is an outright lie, the judge that banned WhatsApp for 48 hours, used Marco Civil to do it, if Marco Civil had never passed, WhatsApp would not be banned today. Another innacuracy is saying that it is a "conservative" congress dominated by "evangelical extremists" and "military apologists" The biggest bloc in the congress was allied with the leftist president in the elections, and still is mostly allied with said president. (the exception is "PSC", that is a socialist christian party, they tend to ignore the president wishes a lot, still it is 13 deputies out of 79 in that bloc) Second biggest, is indeed right-leaning, but their policies resemble US democratic party of the 90s, instead of true conservatism. Third bloc is dominated by a party with no political leanings to left, or right (they only do whatever it takes to stay in power, and have left and right politicians in their ranks). The vice-president is of that party, and they are in "opposition" only because they want the vice-president to take over. Fourth is PT, with 59 seats, it is the president party, and is named "workers party" and has many outright communist people in it. Next 3 groups are socialist, then there is the democrats party, that has policies like US democrats, then the rest of the parties are mostly socialist too. In total there are from 512 lawmakers, 108 are "conservative". Also, I've been following the votes on the Uber ban on Brazil, almost in all cases left wing parties that voted to ban Uber (and some even proposed to not only ban Uber, but make a law that make apps that call regular taxis to send lots of personal information to the governmens, including full GPS-tracked route of the person while inside the cab). Meanwhile the big bloc that is "conservative" (the one that on my list is on the second biggest bloc in the congress) is the one that regularly vote against laws that restrict freedoms. Still, our congress is awful, and is indeed proposing (and sometimes passing) lots and lots of bullshit laws.
- iamcurious 11y ago
  >only communicate with her with WhatsApp, I never considered that the government would ever actually shut it down So you got her number on your cellphone which means you can call and text. You can talk to her, not for free but a few messages should be enough to arrange for another free service.
silveira 11y ago
I'm in the US and my family is in Brazil. I relly on WhatsApp over 3G/4G to comunicante with them as they are usually without access to faster internet (DSL/cable). I read about the blockage a few hours ago and made me concerned because if anything happens that's the most reliable channel I have. Then I receive a message from my brother saying he was going to the hospital (on WhatsApp, just before they cutted it off). Fortunately he had time to tell me he is fine. My other brother is in a ship, almost same connectivity problems. I know that there are workarounds, other applications, vpns, IP masking etc. But WhatsApp is something that my parents and brothers can use.
- obvio171 11y ago
  I bet there are tons of hospital staff who use WhatsApp in Brazil every day to coordinate mission-critical stuff, in which case this absurd move is putting people's lives at risk.
rmdoss 11y ago
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 storing data from Brazilians using the service in Brazil, they banned WhatsApp for 48 hrs. A lot less alarmist.
- morgante 11y ago
  > some criminals You mean suspected criminals, right? It still seems pretty reactionary. The solution isn't to block an entire service.
  - ossreality 11y ago
    >The solution isn't to block an entire service. Oh really? What else are you supposed to do when a startup flush with cash decides to ignore the laws of your nation, exactly?
    - leshow 11y ago
      What a ridiculous thing to say. Firstly, the amount of cash the company has is irrelevant. Secondly, it was mentioned elsewhere in this thread, if WhatsApp has no presence in Brazil (i.e. no physical offices, the service is just 'offered' there because it is on Google Play/App Store) then why should they have to comply with local laws in a foreign country? If my website gets ruled to turn over logs by some local jurisdiction in Brazil. Why should I feel compelled to comply? I am not Brazilian and I have no Brazilian business presence. It's the Internet... to be policed by every local jurisdiction in the world is ridiculous.
  - pinkrooftop 11y ago
    Better an entire nation go without WhatsApp than one guilty man go free /s
  - 11y ago
jrapdx3 11y ago
Never realized that the political scene in Brazil was as crazy as the article portrays. Makes the US election campaigns look downright tame. As bizarre as some candidates' ideas seem to be, hard to imagine how judges or US congress would get away with attempting the same things. If provisions like those in the article persist, predictably the predominantly young users of social media will protest loudly, I would think the resulting unrest would be too big a liability for the judges and politicians. A while back I knew a guy who worked for a US company involved with setting up inventory and telecommunications software for businesses. Having traveled to Brazil to assist with installing the systems, he described the extremely convoluted regulatory environment down there, and how difficult that made it to get anything done. While the whole affair is hard to understand, the basis for picking on particular targets (e.g., WhatsApp) doesn't make sense. Unless all such services are banned it only punishes the particular providers for no good cause. Speculating out loud about their target selection is unproductive, but possibly someone has more actual info about it. So I guess like politics anywhere, what they do know well is how to shoot themselves in the foot. Until it's realized what they've done it will cause a lot of trouble for legitimate enterprises, let alone the massive population so negatively affected. Edit: In the time it took me to write this comment, a bunch of people have add comments about the situation. Wow, that was fast...
shmerl 11y ago
Use XMPP + Jingle. How are they going to shut down that?
ex3ndr 11y ago
Right now we (https://actor.im/br/ https://actor.im/br/) are trying to launch free and open alternative to WhatsApp/Telegram with Open Source community in Brazil.
- tetrep 11y ago
  why not textsecure? it's free and open source.
  - ex3ndr 11y ago
    Text secure is a cool application, but they are not focused on people. Very different goals of projects.
    - nindalf 11y ago
      Not focused on people? That doesn't... make much sense.
dmingod666 11y ago
Switched to hacker news a year back, Never visit techcrunch.. Best decision. On an unrelated note, just hate their 'apple is the center of the universe' line of thought..
NN88 11y ago
500,000 users signed up for Telegram in 3 hours https://twitter.com/telegram/status/677278277657055232 https://twitter.com/telegram/status/677278277657055232
HaseebR7 11y ago
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.
threatofrain 11y ago
Does this mean it's illegal for a company to create a zero-knowledge communication network in Brazil? Or encryption without backdoors?
- zorked 11y ago
  No.
free2rhyme214 11y ago
Time to switch to Telegram!
outworlder 11y ago
To put this in perspective, it would be as if a single judge in the US managed to shutdown all SMS for 48 hours, in the whole country. () Because, you see, SMS is too expensive in Brazil. So people resort to WhatsApp instead. () It doesn't matter if SMS is not controlled by a single company, the block has to be enforced by all internet and cellphone operators in the entire country.
kbart 11y ago
Terrible news, but it proves once again that we need decentralized, end-to-end encrypted OSS communications to be safe.
bitJericho 11y ago
Amazing how easy it is to tell a tc article by the title. When is hn going to ban tc?
milkers 11y ago
It even didnt happen in Turkey. The country which loves bans.
expadaden 11y ago
you can always use temporary free and reliable vpn provider to unblock WhatsApp or any other websites and apps.... try https://www.hashtagvpn.com https://www.hashtagvpn.com
misja111 11y ago
I'm confused. As far as I know WhatsApp does not archive any messages on its servers. Messages are only kept there temporarily until they are delivered to the recipient and then they are deleted. This is also what WhatsApp states in its legal documentation: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/ https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/ : "The contents of messages that have been delivered by the WhatsApp Service are not copied, kept or archived by WhatsApp in the normal course of business." Furthermore, messages are end-to-end encrypted. So how could WhatsApp comply to the judge's demand?
- cnvogel 11y ago
  > Furthermore, messages are end-to-end encrypted. I don't think so. WhatsApp states in their FAQ: "WhatsApp communication between your phone and our server is encrypted." [https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/21864047 https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/21864047]
fernandomm 11y ago
The real reason is that WhatsApp refused to provide information about a PCC member. PCC is the largest criminal organization in Brazil. It's involved in several criminal activities like drug dealing and gun trafficking. It was also responsible for "closing" Sao Paulo city some years ago forcing people to stay at their homes as well as killing hundreds of cops ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primeiro_Comando_da_Capital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primeiro_Comando_da_Capital ). The judge tried to obtain the information from WhatsApp for several months but it was simply ignored. Blocking WhatsApp was one of the last options that she had to try to obtain the information. Here is more information from a reliable source ( it's in portuguese ): http://www.conjur.com.br/2015-dez-16/bloqueio-whatsapp-pivo-homem-solto-stf-mes http://www.conjur.com.br/2015-dez-16/bloqueio-whatsapp-pivo-...
- julioneander 11y ago
  It scares to think that a single decision from a judge can suspend the most widely used communication service in Brazil like that. The whole nation was affected by a decision that concerns to a few people only.
jld89 11y ago
WhatsApp didn't break any US laws. If whatsapp doesn't follow Brazils laws it can't break them. However Brazil is in its full rights to ban it if it considers it isn't coherent with the local laws. It's simple really.

221 points by NN88 11y ago

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.

rbanffy 11y ago
That and that Facebook may have to comply with valid court orders. How outrageous a judge telling what Facebook should do.
- aianus 11y ago
  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.
  - Tomte 11y ago
    "Overseas" in that context would be the US, right? :-) We have exactly that problem with Facebook and other big US companies in Europe (Uber comes to mind): they act in Europe (and do damage here), but hide in the US. Oftentimes not even replying to court orders, because hey, what can a lowly regional court judge from Germany do, right? If you want to play here, comply with our laws. If you don't, then don't be surprised if your business is shut down. I can totally understand the attitude of the Brazilian judge, even if the result is terrible. But suddenly he is paid attention! Chapeau!
    - aianus 11y ago
      Why should a lowly regional judge in Germany (or the US for that matter) be allowed to meddle with a national or global communications network? There must be millions of judges in the world, many of whom are corrupt, power-hungry, or just plain stupid. It would be silly for Facebook, Google, etc. to blindly obey each one of their ramblings. Edit: s/shut down/meddle with/
      - Tomte 11y ago
        We make sure our justice system is not corrupt. You don't get to ignore our laws, just because you conveniently hint to corruption. If you feel our country is too corrupt to make business in, great, stay away. Why should we allow extra-legal, non-elected company managers from abroad to trump our constitutional, legal and parliamentary-approved laws?
        aianus 11y ago
        I'm sure you believe your country's laws are fair, just, constitutional, and parliamentary-approved. However, so do Thai people believe about their laws against insulting their King. Do you think Facebook should be in the business of censoring posts insulting the Thai King just because some judge there gives them a court order? I maintain that Facebook should, in general, ignore foreign court orders and just do what's right. At the risk, of course, of being blocked entirely in that country.
        Tomte 11y ago
        If they want to do business there, sure. The alternative stands: get out of the country. You maintain that Facebook should, in general, follow your legal system. Do you believe that America and only America is "fair, just, constitutional, and parliamentary-approved"? That's basically American exceptionalism at its best.
        msh 11y ago
        So if the US wants info on users of a German app who have no servers or offices in the US it should just give it to them? Even if the offense they are suspected of is not illegal in Germany? My point is that Brazil should follow legal procedures and have a American judge issue a supena. That's what a MLAT is for.
        germanier 11y ago
        I'm sure the Brazilian judge followed Brazilian legal procedures. That's the entire point of being a Brazilian judge. There might be other means to achieve a goal but that doesn't mean what happened isn't legal. In your example, if that German app was targeted to US users (e.g. by localization and marketing) then yes, they should follow US laws. That's a test German courts use to determine whether they have jurisdiction in the digital world and I think that's fair and should be applied in the other direction as well. If they don't want to or can't (e.g. by contractual obligations or German law) they shouldn't act surprised if the US doesn't allow US business to trade with them.
  - rbanffy 11y ago
    The same way that, when I open an office in the US I must live with a series of arbitrary laws I may not agree with (or that horrify me), when you open an office in a corrupt third-world country, you are supposed to obey the law or suffer the consequences.

reubenmorais 11y ago

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 https://twitter.com/telegram

adrtessier 11y ago
John Gilmore's oft quoted in these cases: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." When, if ever, will politicians learn this? Will it take a generation that has grown up on the Internet and watched this to make them realize these actions are pretty futile?
- roymurdock 11y ago
  This is exactly what the judge wants. He is trying to get Whatsapp to comply with his request. What could be a better way to do this then to drive millions of users to a competitor? The longer Whatsapp holds out, the more users leave the service, possibly for good. Thing is, this better be a really important case. Because if users migrate and stay on Telegram, it could be much harder for Brazilian courts to get records in the future.
  - adrtessier 11y ago
    > Because if users migrate and stay on Telegram, it could be much harder for Brazilian courts to get records in the future. Yeah, that's the way that I see it. I don't believe this is the right kind of gambit to be playing. Not only would I expect Telegram to be even more likely than Facebook to tell the judge to shove the subpoena up his arse, he has escalated a war with a company that often is very good at fighting all of its battles on its own terms. I am now very curious who the subpoena was going after.
  - moxie 11y ago
    > Thing is, this better be a really important case. Because if users migrate and stay on Telegram, it could be much harder for Brazilian courts to get records in the future. Why would it be harder? Telegram has the entire plaintext message history for every message all of their users have ever sent, WhatsApp doesn't. It's much easier for Telegram to comply, not harder.

hcarvalhoalves 11y ago

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 from international private companies. This is the actual fact, but the article is conflating that with Marco Civil and other regulatory attempts that have nothing to do with this particular court ruling. TL;DR TechCrunch publishes unchecked, alarmist news.

ank_the_elder 11y ago
That sounds like a more interesting story - do you have any links to learn more about it? (even if they are in Portuguese) Thanks!
- hcarvalhoalves 11y ago
  It's linked in the article: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2015/12/1719934-justica-determina-bloqueio-do-whatsapp-em-todo-brasil-por-48-horas.shtml http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2015/12/1719934-justica...
  - ank_the_elder 11y ago
    (automatic translation, highlight mine) "[...] Folha learned that justice in São Bernardo do Campo wants WhatsApp stay out of air in the country due to a criminal investigation. The authorities investigating the case obtained legal authorization for the WhatsApp broke the confidentiality of data exchanged via investigated by the application, but the company did not release the requested information. The blockade would be a reprisal. In February, a similar case occurred in Piauí, when a judge also ruled WhatsApp lock in Brazil. The aim was to force the company that owns the application to cooperate with state police investigations related to cases of pedophilia. The decision was suspended by a judge of Piaui Court after analyzing writ of mandamus filed by the telcos. [...]"
11y ago

graeme 11y ago

That's crazy. I was in Brazil for a month. everybody was on whatsapp. Facebook a distant second for message volume. SMS wasn't even on the radar.

tabacof 11y ago

This is insane, this judge must be on a power trip. WhatsApp is now part of Brazilian social life and economy. Everyone here is part of many groups of friends, family or workmates, that is where most instant communication happens. In my company, our deployment engineers, who usually are on very remote places with bad and unreliable internet, rely on WhatsApp. I'm not saying this is the best practice, but this is simply the way Brazil works right now. Even the mobile phone companies offer plans with free WhatsApp connection, because that is what most people here care about. Another example: In Brazil, 9 in 10 doctors use WhatsApp to talk to patients (http://www.cityam.com/230372/digital-health-wearables-and-apps-9-in-10-brazilian-doctors-use-whatsapp-to-talk-to-patients http://www.cityam.com/230372/digital-health-wearables-and-ap...). To disregard all the people and businesses that rely on WhatsApp for whatever reason is unbelievable. But this is not without precedent, once another Brazilian judge blocked YouTube for a whole day because it refused to take down a celebrity video. This says a lot about the over-sized, inefficient, and stupid state we have, always meddling and intervening.

andreyf 11y ago
Seems to me like it might be WhatsApp that's on a power trip. What would an American judge do if WhatsApp were to ignore a lawful subpoena?
- msh 11y ago
  But its not a lawful subpoena. What's app is a America n company, so it should only respond to American supoenas. Just as a American judge should not be able to order a Brazilian company to do anything before having it go though the Brazilian courts.
  - bjt 11y ago
    A Brazilian company with a presence in the US could absolutely be subject to a US court order without any court in Brazil needing to be involved. You don't get to dodge the laws of a country you're operating in just because your HQ is in some other country.

rccrv 11y ago

It wasn't Congress that decided that. It is a single judge that gave an order to block the service for 48 hours. It can be reversed if another judge decides the "liminar" (I don't know how to say this in English, it's a temporary decision) shouldn't been given.

jessaustin 11y ago
"Injunction", perhaps?
- rccrv 11y ago
  That is a good equivalent and it gives some idea of what happened for those familiar with the concept. Thanks for the clarification.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

bbarn 11y ago

This is the place the Olympics are going to be this summer. I can't help but hope the people use it as a stage to protest, but would imagine the media would largely ignore it.

necessity 11y ago

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’re going to take down the entire social web as we know it, with bills circulating through the legislature to criminalize posting social media content and to allow the government to spy on its citizens. Conservatives are not the only ones trying to censor the internet in here, absolutely every politician wants it. >It’s an about-face from last year, when President Dilma Rousseff approved Marco Civil, a groundbreaking Internet “Bill of Rights”, as a response to the Snowden revelations that the NSA was spying on Brazil. The landmark bill, Brazil’s first internet legislation, protects net neutrality, user privacy and freedom of speech. On the contrary! Marco Civil threatens user privacy (more below), and the "net neutrality" part has lead to just the same that happened today: Mobile companies were forced to shutdown their "free WhatsApp and Facebook" plans, making millions get blocked from WhatsApp[4]. Anyway, back to the privacy issues, article 11 of the text[1] is the more worrying one. Some highlights: § 2º A autoridade policial ou administrativa poderá requerer cautelarmente que os registros de conexão sejam guardados por prazo superior ao previsto no caput. § 4º O provedor responsável pela guarda dos registros deverá manter sigilo em relação ao requerimento previsto no § 2º It says basically that police can require records of visited CONTENT without a court order and the ISP is required to supply that without informing the user. Somewhere else in the text it forces ISPs to store user history for a year. If the text really wanted to protect user privacy it would say something about cryptography, which isn't mentioned anywhere in the text. Article 2 says there must be a "social purpose" for websites and that gov. may take websites down if it feels it doesn't serve the public interest. Brazilian govt. already has a history of censoring YouTube and Facebook videos involving politicians, judges or celebrities[5][2][3]. [1] http://www.camara.gov.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra?codteor=912989&filename=PL+2126/20 http://www.camara.gov.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra?... [2] http://oglobo.globo.com/tecnologia/para-nao-sair-do-ar-no-brasil-facebook-remove-posts-ofensivos-10244954 http://oglobo.globo.com/tecnologia/para-nao-sair-do-ar-no-br... [3] http://www.conjur.com.br/2012-ago-08/google-retirar-ar-video-ofensivo-vereador-pena-multa http://www.conjur.com.br/2012-ago-08/google-retirar-ar-video... [4] http://gizmodo.uol.com.br/tim-claro-twitter-gratis/ http://gizmodo.uol.com.br/tim-claro-twitter-gratis/ [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PYQktiGLhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PYQktiGLhw

speeder 11y ago

I am from Brazil, and although bizarre decisions happened before, I can say that this time they actually went through with it, and I can't talk to my psychologist (I only communicate with her with WhatsApp, I never considered that the government would ever actually shut it down). As for the article it is one of the most bizarrely biased articles I ever read, spouting some information that are outright lies. Example: it says that Marco Civil law was an example of the congress favouring internet openness, that is an outright lie, the judge that banned WhatsApp for 48 hours, used Marco Civil to do it, if Marco Civil had never passed, WhatsApp would not be banned today. Another innacuracy is saying that it is a "conservative" congress dominated by "evangelical extremists" and "military apologists" The biggest bloc in the congress was allied with the leftist president in the elections, and still is mostly allied with said president. (the exception is "PSC", that is a socialist christian party, they tend to ignore the president wishes a lot, still it is 13 deputies out of 79 in that bloc) Second biggest, is indeed right-leaning, but their policies resemble US democratic party of the 90s, instead of true conservatism. Third bloc is dominated by a party with no political leanings to left, or right (they only do whatever it takes to stay in power, and have left and right politicians in their ranks). The vice-president is of that party, and they are in "opposition" only because they want the vice-president to take over. Fourth is PT, with 59 seats, it is the president party, and is named "workers party" and has many outright communist people in it. Next 3 groups are socialist, then there is the democrats party, that has policies like US democrats, then the rest of the parties are mostly socialist too. In total there are from 512 lawmakers, 108 are "conservative". Also, I've been following the votes on the Uber ban on Brazil, almost in all cases left wing parties that voted to ban Uber (and some even proposed to not only ban Uber, but make a law that make apps that call regular taxis to send lots of personal information to the governmens, including full GPS-tracked route of the person while inside the cab). Meanwhile the big bloc that is "conservative" (the one that on my list is on the second biggest bloc in the congress) is the one that regularly vote against laws that restrict freedoms. Still, our congress is awful, and is indeed proposing (and sometimes passing) lots and lots of bullshit laws.

iamcurious 11y ago
>only communicate with her with WhatsApp, I never considered that the government would ever actually shut it down So you got her number on your cellphone which means you can call and text. You can talk to her, not for free but a few messages should be enough to arrange for another free service.

silveira 11y ago

I'm in the US and my family is in Brazil. I relly on WhatsApp over 3G/4G to comunicante with them as they are usually without access to faster internet (DSL/cable). I read about the blockage a few hours ago and made me concerned because if anything happens that's the most reliable channel I have. Then I receive a message from my brother saying he was going to the hospital (on WhatsApp, just before they cutted it off). Fortunately he had time to tell me he is fine. My other brother is in a ship, almost same connectivity problems. I know that there are workarounds, other applications, vpns, IP masking etc. But WhatsApp is something that my parents and brothers can use.

obvio171 11y ago
I bet there are tons of hospital staff who use WhatsApp in Brazil every day to coordinate mission-critical stuff, in which case this absurd move is putting people's lives at risk.

rmdoss 11y ago

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 storing data from Brazilians using the service in Brazil, they banned WhatsApp for 48 hrs. A lot less alarmist.

morgante 11y ago
> some criminals You mean suspected criminals, right? It still seems pretty reactionary. The solution isn't to block an entire service.
- ossreality 11y ago
  >The solution isn't to block an entire service. Oh really? What else are you supposed to do when a startup flush with cash decides to ignore the laws of your nation, exactly?
  - leshow 11y ago
    What a ridiculous thing to say. Firstly, the amount of cash the company has is irrelevant. Secondly, it was mentioned elsewhere in this thread, if WhatsApp has no presence in Brazil (i.e. no physical offices, the service is just 'offered' there because it is on Google Play/App Store) then why should they have to comply with local laws in a foreign country? If my website gets ruled to turn over logs by some local jurisdiction in Brazil. Why should I feel compelled to comply? I am not Brazilian and I have no Brazilian business presence. It's the Internet... to be policed by every local jurisdiction in the world is ridiculous.
- pinkrooftop 11y ago
  Better an entire nation go without WhatsApp than one guilty man go free /s
- 11y ago

jrapdx3 11y ago

Never realized that the political scene in Brazil was as crazy as the article portrays. Makes the US election campaigns look downright tame. As bizarre as some candidates' ideas seem to be, hard to imagine how judges or US congress would get away with attempting the same things. If provisions like those in the article persist, predictably the predominantly young users of social media will protest loudly, I would think the resulting unrest would be too big a liability for the judges and politicians. A while back I knew a guy who worked for a US company involved with setting up inventory and telecommunications software for businesses. Having traveled to Brazil to assist with installing the systems, he described the extremely convoluted regulatory environment down there, and how difficult that made it to get anything done. While the whole affair is hard to understand, the basis for picking on particular targets (e.g., WhatsApp) doesn't make sense. Unless all such services are banned it only punishes the particular providers for no good cause. Speculating out loud about their target selection is unproductive, but possibly someone has more actual info about it. So I guess like politics anywhere, what they do know well is how to shoot themselves in the foot. Until it's realized what they've done it will cause a lot of trouble for legitimate enterprises, let alone the massive population so negatively affected. Edit: In the time it took me to write this comment, a bunch of people have add comments about the situation. Wow, that was fast...

shmerl 11y ago

Use XMPP + Jingle. How are they going to shut down that?

ex3ndr 11y ago

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

tetrep 11y ago
why not textsecure? it's free and open source.
- ex3ndr 11y ago
  Text secure is a cool application, but they are not focused on people. Very different goals of projects.
  - nindalf 11y ago
    Not focused on people? That doesn't... make much sense.

dmingod666 11y ago

Switched to hacker news a year back, Never visit techcrunch.. Best decision. On an unrelated note, just hate their 'apple is the center of the universe' line of thought..

NN88 11y ago

500,000 users signed up for Telegram in 3 hours https://twitter.com/telegram/status/677278277657055232 https://twitter.com/telegram/status/677278277657055232

HaseebR7 11y ago

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.

threatofrain 11y ago

Does this mean it's illegal for a company to create a zero-knowledge communication network in Brazil? Or encryption without backdoors?

zorked 11y ago
No.

free2rhyme214 11y ago

Time to switch to Telegram!

outworlder 11y ago

To put this in perspective, it would be as if a single judge in the US managed to shutdown all SMS for 48 hours, in the whole country. () Because, you see, SMS is too expensive in Brazil. So people resort to WhatsApp instead. () It doesn't matter if SMS is not controlled by a single company, the block has to be enforced by all internet and cellphone operators in the entire country.

kbart 11y ago

Terrible news, but it proves once again that we need decentralized, end-to-end encrypted OSS communications to be safe.

bitJericho 11y ago

Amazing how easy it is to tell a tc article by the title. When is hn going to ban tc?

milkers 11y ago

It even didnt happen in Turkey. The country which loves bans.

expadaden 11y ago

you can always use temporary free and reliable vpn provider to unblock WhatsApp or any other websites and apps.... try https://www.hashtagvpn.com https://www.hashtagvpn.com

misja111 11y ago

I'm confused. As far as I know WhatsApp does not archive any messages on its servers. Messages are only kept there temporarily until they are delivered to the recipient and then they are deleted. This is also what WhatsApp states in its legal documentation: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/ https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/ : "The contents of messages that have been delivered by the WhatsApp Service are not copied, kept or archived by WhatsApp in the normal course of business." Furthermore, messages are end-to-end encrypted. So how could WhatsApp comply to the judge's demand?

cnvogel 11y ago
> Furthermore, messages are end-to-end encrypted. I don't think so. WhatsApp states in their FAQ: "WhatsApp communication between your phone and our server is encrypted." [https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/21864047 https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/21864047]

fernandomm 11y ago

The real reason is that WhatsApp refused to provide information about a PCC member. PCC is the largest criminal organization in Brazil. It's involved in several criminal activities like drug dealing and gun trafficking. It was also responsible for "closing" Sao Paulo city some years ago forcing people to stay at their homes as well as killing hundreds of cops ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primeiro_Comando_da_Capital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primeiro_Comando_da_Capital ). The judge tried to obtain the information from WhatsApp for several months but it was simply ignored. Blocking WhatsApp was one of the last options that she had to try to obtain the information. Here is more information from a reliable source ( it's in portuguese ): http://www.conjur.com.br/2015-dez-16/bloqueio-whatsapp-pivo-homem-solto-stf-mes http://www.conjur.com.br/2015-dez-16/bloqueio-whatsapp-pivo-...

julioneander 11y ago
It scares to think that a single decision from a judge can suspend the most widely used communication service in Brazil like that. The whole nation was affected by a decision that concerns to a few people only.

jld89 11y ago

WhatsApp didn't break any US laws. If whatsapp doesn't follow Brazils laws it can't break them. However Brazil is in its full rights to ban it if it considers it isn't coherent with the local laws. It's simple really.