5 ms·

Contempt of court in the U.S. escalates considerably beyond fines if the company doesn't start complying quickly. The court can jail the company's officers, iss

Contempt of court in the U.S. escalates considerably beyond fines if the company doesn't start complying quickly. The court can jail the company's officers, issue an injunction forcing them to stop doing business, instruct customs to blockade them at the U.S. border (in the case of companies selling physical goods), and a range of other things.

morgante 11y ago
Yes, that's all true. But they don't compel third parties to block the company's app.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  That's when it's a US company if it's foreign it will end up on the US trade department sanction list which will blacklist them world wide not only in the US and will prevent any entity which operates in the US from doing any sort of business with them. There is nothing that a Brazilian judge can do to whatsapp other than to harm them financially cutting off 100m users even in a developing market sends a clear sign.
  - necessity 11y ago
    Two wrongs make a right?
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      Where is the wrong here? When company does not cooperate you force it to do so by any means available to you.
      - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
        "any means" is a slippery slope
      - logicchains 11y ago
        >When company does not cooperate you force it to do so by any means available to you. Some people don't consider this "might makes right" morally compelling.
        dogma1138 11y ago
        This isn't might makes right this is a corporation pissing over laws, if this was some oil company killing seals would you respond in the same manner? WhatsApp provides a service in a country, they gain direct financial benefit from almost 100M users, they received a subpoena and ignored it because it's Brazil, if this would've been a European nation they would most likely have complied, if it were a US court order they would for sure have complied. The only "might makes right" here is WhatsApp ignoring the subpoena because they are an almighty multi billion dollar US company which thinks it's above the law. And on the other side we know that there's pretty much no company on the planet that would dare to defy a US subpoena or court order. Should only US and "western" nation's legal systems be respected? Is this some how morally compelling to you?
        lucasnemeth 11y ago
        Things should be taken into consideration, a "confidential" investigation that closes an service used by millions of citizens is highly controversial. They don't do the same to any Telecom company, so that's very suspicious. A spilling of oil is not controversial. It's damage made by a company accidentally and that is causing great environmental damage. The Brazilian government has the power to ask try to enforce their legislation, but asking other companies to close the service should be the last thing they do. And if necessary, they should close the service completely, 48h is pure nonsense. They should arrest representatives before closing the service. this is nonsense. Also, the reasons are all confidential, so we can't even know it they are justifiable. This is manipulative, not transparent, and very keen to a dictatorship. Lastly. Brazil is a "western" nation...
        dogma1138 11y ago
        Subpoena is a subpoena, most wire taps and telecom subpoenas are confidential you can't really have your target knowing that you are tapping them can you? No where did i mentioned spilling of oil it's just an example if an energy company doesn't want to cooperate with the government it's perfectly legitimate to order your energy sector to stop importing oil from them this happens quite often. Same goes for websites that violate laws like copyright which are blocked by ISP's. The Brazilian government has no power over WhatsApp and WhatsApp knows this very well this is why they've utterly ignored them, this isn't some civil rights issue WhatsApp cooperates with US and EU countries all the time this is they CBA because it's Brazil. And lastly Brazil was part of the 3rd world during the Cold War and is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement so it's really not a western country.
  - morgante 11y ago
    Facebook has an office in Brazil. I don't really understand why they couldn't just levy financial penalties, since Facebook does actually have a business presence in the country.
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      WhatsApp and Facebook are still separate legal entities as far as i know, the subpoena was issued to WhatsApp it didn't comply they've issued a court order to block it in order to compel it to comply. If a US company would not comply to a court order, a US judge can prevent the company from operating at all by freezing all of their assets and halting all of their operations.
    - rmc 11y ago
      You're presuming that that Facebook office in Brazil actually has a lot of assets in Brazil to seize. It's likely that it's a shell organisation and has nothing to seize.
- guelo 11y ago
  US government used coercion through unofficial back channels to force Amazon and Paypal to cutoff Wikileaks.
  - CaptSpify 11y ago
    And that was the wrong approach to that "problem" as well
  - andreyf 11y ago
    Why do you think it was the US government?

morgante 11y ago

Yes, that's all true. But they don't compel third parties to block the company's app.

dogma1138 11y ago
That's when it's a US company if it's foreign it will end up on the US trade department sanction list which will blacklist them world wide not only in the US and will prevent any entity which operates in the US from doing any sort of business with them. There is nothing that a Brazilian judge can do to whatsapp other than to harm them financially cutting off 100m users even in a developing market sends a clear sign.
- necessity 11y ago
  Two wrongs make a right?
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    Where is the wrong here? When company does not cooperate you force it to do so by any means available to you.
    - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
      "any means" is a slippery slope
    - logicchains 11y ago
      >When company does not cooperate you force it to do so by any means available to you. Some people don't consider this "might makes right" morally compelling.
      - dogma1138 11y ago
        This isn't might makes right this is a corporation pissing over laws, if this was some oil company killing seals would you respond in the same manner? WhatsApp provides a service in a country, they gain direct financial benefit from almost 100M users, they received a subpoena and ignored it because it's Brazil, if this would've been a European nation they would most likely have complied, if it were a US court order they would for sure have complied. The only "might makes right" here is WhatsApp ignoring the subpoena because they are an almighty multi billion dollar US company which thinks it's above the law. And on the other side we know that there's pretty much no company on the planet that would dare to defy a US subpoena or court order. Should only US and "western" nation's legal systems be respected? Is this some how morally compelling to you?
        lucasnemeth 11y ago
        Things should be taken into consideration, a "confidential" investigation that closes an service used by millions of citizens is highly controversial. They don't do the same to any Telecom company, so that's very suspicious. A spilling of oil is not controversial. It's damage made by a company accidentally and that is causing great environmental damage. The Brazilian government has the power to ask try to enforce their legislation, but asking other companies to close the service should be the last thing they do. And if necessary, they should close the service completely, 48h is pure nonsense. They should arrest representatives before closing the service. this is nonsense. Also, the reasons are all confidential, so we can't even know it they are justifiable. This is manipulative, not transparent, and very keen to a dictatorship. Lastly. Brazil is a "western" nation...
        dogma1138 11y ago
        Subpoena is a subpoena, most wire taps and telecom subpoenas are confidential you can't really have your target knowing that you are tapping them can you? No where did i mentioned spilling of oil it's just an example if an energy company doesn't want to cooperate with the government it's perfectly legitimate to order your energy sector to stop importing oil from them this happens quite often. Same goes for websites that violate laws like copyright which are blocked by ISP's. The Brazilian government has no power over WhatsApp and WhatsApp knows this very well this is why they've utterly ignored them, this isn't some civil rights issue WhatsApp cooperates with US and EU countries all the time this is they CBA because it's Brazil. And lastly Brazil was part of the 3rd world during the Cold War and is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement so it's really not a western country.
- morgante 11y ago
  Facebook has an office in Brazil. I don't really understand why they couldn't just levy financial penalties, since Facebook does actually have a business presence in the country.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    WhatsApp and Facebook are still separate legal entities as far as i know, the subpoena was issued to WhatsApp it didn't comply they've issued a court order to block it in order to compel it to comply. If a US company would not comply to a court order, a US judge can prevent the company from operating at all by freezing all of their assets and halting all of their operations.
  - rmc 11y ago
    You're presuming that that Facebook office in Brazil actually has a lot of assets in Brazil to seize. It's likely that it's a shell organisation and has nothing to seize.
guelo 11y ago
US government used coercion through unofficial back channels to force Amazon and Paypal to cutoff Wikileaks.
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  And that was the wrong approach to that "problem" as well
- andreyf 11y ago
  Why do you think it was the US government?