6 ms·

US releases sealed Brazil orders to X, shedding light on account suspensions

44 points by c420 3y ago

ineedaj0b 3y ago
Rough times for figuring out how to deal with so much information. I wonder how much other platform providers do. I feel they all have their hearts in the right place, but eventually I’d get sick of the headache and just bow my head to advertisers and governments. I have a lot of respect to all the platform providers who are rolling in cash and could be rolling in more but decide to try to do the right thing. I do expect them to do more than the many who are not rolling in cash and fumbling it all up but I’m an optimistic guy. We live in interesting times. (hacker news, yes this website, was? probably still is? monitored by US authorities because it used the keyword ‘hacker’)
- greesil 3y ago
  Everything public is "monitored". It's called a search engine.
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  They weren’t using something as naive as keyword search even 20 years ago. That notion is more trope than reality.
  - ineedaj0b 3y ago
    I thought it was leaked around Assange times the NSA kept tabs around here? I remember a few getting freaked out by that
mise_en_place 3y ago
The vagaries of operating a US corporation in other countries is quite intriguing. But what's even more interesting is that the Network State is beginning to supersede legacy institutions in terms of both soft and hard power. It must be terrifying to the stakeholders of legacy institutions globally, not just here in the United States.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  I'm uncertain what you mean by this. 'Hard power' generally refers to military and economic actions such as sanctions - ie where governments forbid third parties in the private sector (or indeed other countries, if they have the heft) to do business with the sanctioned entities. Can't see how that applies. The internet as a political factor is of course new, but transnational organization/ideology explicitly directed at displacement of the existing order goes back centuries.
  - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
    Hard power is also the ability to police & coral & force not just far off people but your own people too. In the network state era, there are forces far beyond your borders that the majority of your citizens are dealing with regularly. You can keep a very tight grasp on your own citizen, effect all the moderately high firewalls you want & dabble in banning cryptography as you please, perhaps, but it'll usually be a pretty leaky defense, and no matter how much hard power you have in your state there's probably very little your hard power is going to do to stop or reduce the overwhelming presence of Facebook or Google or far more modest sized internet services in the world. They will certainly keep influencing the world. And they will keep creeping in and influencing your people. Power used to have geographic limitations, which gave local power enormity & presence. In the fiber optic age, that hard power buys you a lot less. And requires far more pressure & vigilance to apply even within your border.
- threeseed 3y ago
  Governments are not legacy and are rarely terrified by anything. This is the mistake that arrogant tech players make up until they are smacked down and are either put in jail e.g. crypto space, heavily regulated e.g. EU or coerced into submission e.g. China. And whilst they allow companies to push the limits e.g. Uber, Airbnb it is only up to a certain point where they have provided the maximum benefit to society at which they are swiftly reigned back in.
  - lobocinza 3y ago
    Governments have guns but sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword. Specially when the pen can instantly and subtly influence billions worldwide.
anigbrowl 3y ago
A relevant corollary to this story is that Michael Shellenberger, a Musk-adjacent journalist who alleged that de Moraes had made illegitimate requests to Twitter for information, has now admitted (in Portuguese) to factual errors in his story. https://www.brasilwire.com/brazilian-lawyer-exposes-deceit-at-heart-of-twitter-files/ https://www.brasilwire.com/brazilian-lawyer-exposes-deceit-a... I'm not clear on why a US House committee considers itself to have jurisdiction over civil matters in Brazil, or why their report is distributed from Dropbox rather than a .gov page, but for the sake of completeness (because it's not linked in the AP story) here's the report: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/glo4rprup479k3mn8whsk/2024-04-15-The-Attack-on-Free-Speech-Abroad-and-the-Biden-Administration-s-Silence-The-Case-of-Brazil.pdf?rlkey=5a94g1in1jb8vgoiw5cd2iztg&e=1&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/glo4rprup479k3mn8whsk/2024-04... Linked from https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/brazilian-government-forced-censorship-x-new-report-reveals https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/brazilian-g... EDIT: love to get downvoted for providing additional information relevant to the original submission!
- blackeyeblitzar 3y ago
  The person being interviewed in that first link seems very biased, and obviously is for the authoritarian actions of the current Brazilian regime. She seems to take the stance that the secret unilateral censorship orders are “technically legal” while Musk and others take the stance that they are in conflict with Brazil’s own constitution. But leaving aside legality, obviously secret censorship orders based on political speech are very anti democratic - in the least such actions must be done in the open in full view of the public and not based on the sole judgment of one person. Even if it’s technically legal it should be debated and the law should be changed. As an example of Aranha being biased, take this bit: > So at the moment when were were managing to finally hold the main leaders of this attempted coup accountable, Elon Musk and Michael Shellenberger came onto the scene to attack the institutions that are prosecuting them, to usurp their power so they can’t convict them anymore. That was clearly their short term goal and in the long run Elon Musk obviously wants to be a player in the international far right and interfere in elections around the world, especially in the US. What evidence is there that Musk wants to “interfere in elections”? If anything, he is seeking to remove interference from elections by advocating for less censorship and more neutrality. Shellenberger didn’t “come onto the scene”. He’s been doing great research and journalism for a long time. Also pointing out one factual error that he readily admitted to doesn’t invalidate everything else the Twitter files uncovered. Even if you dismiss Shellenberger, there’s everything Glenn Greenwald has reported on what’s going on - is he also looking to support a coup? He faced attacks on his journalistic freedoms from the previous (Bolsonaro) administration and now the same from the present administration, for brave reporting. Take that interview with a huge grain of salt. It’s Brasil Wire - which is a leftist (and therefore pro Lula) organization, and they’re not shy about their ideological bias: https://www.brasilwire.com/about/ https://www.brasilwire.com/about/
bevekspldnw 3y ago
[flagged]
mdhb 3y ago
“De Moraes’ critics claim he has abused his powers and shouldn’t be allowed to unilaterally ban social media accounts, including those of democratically elected legislators. But most legal experts see his brash tactics as legally sound and furthermore justified by extraordinary circumstances of democracy imperiled. They note his decisions have been either upheld by his fellow justices or gone unchallenged.”
- carlossouza 3y ago
  Negative. The point is not that he shouldn’t be allowed to unilaterally ban social media accounts. The point is that he shouldn’t be allowed to do that in secrecy, without providing any public justification, and not respecting the right of the accused to defend themselves. People are getting silenced without knowing why they are getting silenced, and without proper due process/right to respond.
  - braiamp 3y ago
    Where in the Brazilian constitution you have right to access Twitter or any platform for that matter?
    - throwaway3298 3y ago
      From https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicao.htm https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constitui... "IV - é livre a manifestação do pensamento, sendo vedado o anonimato;" "IX - é livre a expressão da atividade intelectual, artística, científica e de comunicação, independentemente de censura ou licença;" You can see translated versions under "Art 5" here: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017 https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017
    - marcosdumay 3y ago
      You know, during the entire 90s when the people that wrote it were around, they used to say that the Article 5 said this. But nowadays it's consensus over all the influential judges that it doesn't and only registered journalists can say things, and only congresspeople can have their opinions. So, who knows... Anyway, it still says that decisions should be informed to the punished party and people should be able to defend themselves in a court.
mlinhares 3y ago
Not surprisingly Americans think the first amendment is a thing that exists in every single country and are surprised when other countries have laws that are not the exact copy of the US constitution.
- metadat 3y ago
  Where is this comment coming from? This reeks of anti-american bias, what substance does this add to the discussion?
  - mlinhares 3y ago
    Just look at the other comments here saying "oh, this is not a democracy, that's now how democracy works, you can't do that" and, actually, you can, different countries have different laws, electoral law in Brazil is very strict, to the point that if you're campaigning close to voting places on election day you will be arrested and it's all fine, people mostly follow the law and don't get in trouble for it.
    - metadat 3y ago
      Who claimed Brazil is is a proper democracy? The country is largely messed up and controlled by cartels or other outside influences, similar to much of South America. Even the United States is not a true democracy, it's a cheap clone, at best -- *A Representative Republic. There's a reason mant Brazilians have migrated the United States -- Basic safety. Sources: https://www.saltwire.com/halifax/news/in-brazil-your-internet-provider-may-be-a-mobster-cops-say-100711418/ https://www.saltwire.com/halifax/news/in-brazil-your-interne... https://old.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/14o2i3q/in_some_houses_in_brazil_for_them_to_not_get/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/14o2i... Edit: Can anyone recover the link to the phone pole maintenance worker who was taken hostage in south America? I think it happened in Mexico, but memory is fuzzy. The government didn't do shit to help that guy. Terrifying.
      - mlinhares 3y ago
modeless 3y ago
> offering a glimpse into decisions that have spurred complaints of alleged censorship from the company and its billionaire owner In other words, decisions not made by the company or its "billionaire owner" at all but falsely attributed to them. > the company under [Musk's] ownership has bowed to government requests from around the world Under duress! Damned if you do, banned if you don't. In this case they actually did stand up to a government and are of course being criticized for that too. > [Musk's] crusade has been cheered on by supporters of far-right > most legal experts see [the judge's] brash tactics as legally sound and furthermore justified Could this article possibly be written in a more slanted way? To me what's going on with these orders is absurd and obviously shouldn't be allowed in a sensible democracy. Is AP really on the side of the idea that one person should have unilateral, unchecked secret ban power over every social media account in the country?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- whatisthis9 3y ago
  IMO, as the CEO of Tesla, Musk should have never bought X imo from a business standpoint, even if he fully believes in full speech, because it simply traps him (most of the world has no where near as strong free speech laws as the US). In India for example, if he doesn't kowtow to the authoritarian trending Indian government in power, he risks sinking any chance of Tesla expanding its marketshare in a democracy critical to Tesla's future. The same goes for Tesla in Turkey. https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-erdogan-asks-us-elon-musk-build-tesla-factory/ https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-erdogan-asks-us-elon-... . If X starts standing up for speech there, this could sink their future plans in another valuable market. I think the fact that he backtracked on Brazil ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-16/musk-s-x-retreats-pledging-to-comply-with-brazil-court-orders https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-16/musk-s-x-... ) might also show that he also worries about Tesla's future in Brazil.
  - dzhiurgis 3y ago
    As an owner of hard-to-censor global internet satellite constellation, positioning to offer free speech globally is quite fitting.
unclebucknasty 3y ago
Serious question: why is this flagged?
- mr_toad 3y ago
  Clearly by the irony impaired.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
Brazilian constitution has ample protections for free speech. Here are the words which are literally written in the brazilian constitution: > The expression of thought is free > The expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific and communication activities are free, independently of censure or license > The manifestation of thought, of creation, of expression and of information, in any form and by any process or vehicle, shall suffer no restriction > Any and all censorship of political, ideological and artistic nature is prohibited The problem is the judge who insists on "relativizing" what those words mean.
- raxxorraxor 3y ago
  You don't need to look to countries outside the western sphere. There are the same restrictions to privacy and speech where fear based decisions were made with the exact same excuses. It invalidates these laws in the end. Something precious is given up for marginal or even negative gain.

44 points by c420 3y ago

Rough times for figuring out how to deal with so much information. I wonder how much other platform providers do. I feel they all have their hearts in the right place, but eventually I’d get sick of the headache and just bow my head to advertisers and governments. I have a lot of respect to all the platform providers who are rolling in cash and could be rolling in more but decide to try to do the right thing. I do expect them to do more than the many who are not rolling in cash and fumbling it all up but I’m an optimistic guy. We live in interesting times. (hacker news, yes this website, was? probably still is? monitored by US authorities because it used the keyword ‘hacker’)

greesil 3y ago
Everything public is "monitored". It's called a search engine.
jandrewrogers 3y ago
They weren’t using something as naive as keyword search even 20 years ago. That notion is more trope than reality.
- ineedaj0b 3y ago
  I thought it was leaked around Assange times the NSA kept tabs around here? I remember a few getting freaked out by that

mise_en_place 3y ago

The vagaries of operating a US corporation in other countries is quite intriguing. But what's even more interesting is that the Network State is beginning to supersede legacy institutions in terms of both soft and hard power. It must be terrifying to the stakeholders of legacy institutions globally, not just here in the United States.

anigbrowl 3y ago
I'm uncertain what you mean by this. 'Hard power' generally refers to military and economic actions such as sanctions - ie where governments forbid third parties in the private sector (or indeed other countries, if they have the heft) to do business with the sanctioned entities. Can't see how that applies. The internet as a political factor is of course new, but transnational organization/ideology explicitly directed at displacement of the existing order goes back centuries.
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  Hard power is also the ability to police & coral & force not just far off people but your own people too. In the network state era, there are forces far beyond your borders that the majority of your citizens are dealing with regularly. You can keep a very tight grasp on your own citizen, effect all the moderately high firewalls you want & dabble in banning cryptography as you please, perhaps, but it'll usually be a pretty leaky defense, and no matter how much hard power you have in your state there's probably very little your hard power is going to do to stop or reduce the overwhelming presence of Facebook or Google or far more modest sized internet services in the world. They will certainly keep influencing the world. And they will keep creeping in and influencing your people. Power used to have geographic limitations, which gave local power enormity & presence. In the fiber optic age, that hard power buys you a lot less. And requires far more pressure & vigilance to apply even within your border.
threeseed 3y ago
Governments are not legacy and are rarely terrified by anything. This is the mistake that arrogant tech players make up until they are smacked down and are either put in jail e.g. crypto space, heavily regulated e.g. EU or coerced into submission e.g. China. And whilst they allow companies to push the limits e.g. Uber, Airbnb it is only up to a certain point where they have provided the maximum benefit to society at which they are swiftly reigned back in.
- lobocinza 3y ago
  Governments have guns but sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword. Specially when the pen can instantly and subtly influence billions worldwide.

anigbrowl 3y ago

A relevant corollary to this story is that Michael Shellenberger, a Musk-adjacent journalist who alleged that de Moraes had made illegitimate requests to Twitter for information, has now admitted (in Portuguese) to factual errors in his story. https://www.brasilwire.com/brazilian-lawyer-exposes-deceit-at-heart-of-twitter-files/ https://www.brasilwire.com/brazilian-lawyer-exposes-deceit-a... I'm not clear on why a US House committee considers itself to have jurisdiction over civil matters in Brazil, or why their report is distributed from Dropbox rather than a .gov page, but for the sake of completeness (because it's not linked in the AP story) here's the report: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/glo4rprup479k3mn8whsk/2024-04-15-The-Attack-on-Free-Speech-Abroad-and-the-Biden-Administration-s-Silence-The-Case-of-Brazil.pdf?rlkey=5a94g1in1jb8vgoiw5cd2iztg&e=1&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/glo4rprup479k3mn8whsk/2024-04... Linked from https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/brazilian-government-forced-censorship-x-new-report-reveals https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/brazilian-g... EDIT: love to get downvoted for providing additional information relevant to the original submission!

blackeyeblitzar 3y ago
The person being interviewed in that first link seems very biased, and obviously is for the authoritarian actions of the current Brazilian regime. She seems to take the stance that the secret unilateral censorship orders are “technically legal” while Musk and others take the stance that they are in conflict with Brazil’s own constitution. But leaving aside legality, obviously secret censorship orders based on political speech are very anti democratic - in the least such actions must be done in the open in full view of the public and not based on the sole judgment of one person. Even if it’s technically legal it should be debated and the law should be changed. As an example of Aranha being biased, take this bit: > So at the moment when were were managing to finally hold the main leaders of this attempted coup accountable, Elon Musk and Michael Shellenberger came onto the scene to attack the institutions that are prosecuting them, to usurp their power so they can’t convict them anymore. That was clearly their short term goal and in the long run Elon Musk obviously wants to be a player in the international far right and interfere in elections around the world, especially in the US. What evidence is there that Musk wants to “interfere in elections”? If anything, he is seeking to remove interference from elections by advocating for less censorship and more neutrality. Shellenberger didn’t “come onto the scene”. He’s been doing great research and journalism for a long time. Also pointing out one factual error that he readily admitted to doesn’t invalidate everything else the Twitter files uncovered. Even if you dismiss Shellenberger, there’s everything Glenn Greenwald has reported on what’s going on - is he also looking to support a coup? He faced attacks on his journalistic freedoms from the previous (Bolsonaro) administration and now the same from the present administration, for brave reporting. Take that interview with a huge grain of salt. It’s Brasil Wire - which is a leftist (and therefore pro Lula) organization, and they’re not shy about their ideological bias: https://www.brasilwire.com/about/ https://www.brasilwire.com/about/

bevekspldnw 3y ago

[flagged]

mdhb 3y ago

“De Moraes’ critics claim he has abused his powers and shouldn’t be allowed to unilaterally ban social media accounts, including those of democratically elected legislators. But most legal experts see his brash tactics as legally sound and furthermore justified by extraordinary circumstances of democracy imperiled. They note his decisions have been either upheld by his fellow justices or gone unchallenged.”

carlossouza 3y ago
Negative. The point is not that he shouldn’t be allowed to unilaterally ban social media accounts. The point is that he shouldn’t be allowed to do that in secrecy, without providing any public justification, and not respecting the right of the accused to defend themselves. People are getting silenced without knowing why they are getting silenced, and without proper due process/right to respond.
- braiamp 3y ago
  Where in the Brazilian constitution you have right to access Twitter or any platform for that matter?
  - throwaway3298 3y ago
    From https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicao.htm https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constitui... "IV - é livre a manifestação do pensamento, sendo vedado o anonimato;" "IX - é livre a expressão da atividade intelectual, artística, científica e de comunicação, independentemente de censura ou licença;" You can see translated versions under "Art 5" here: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017 https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    You know, during the entire 90s when the people that wrote it were around, they used to say that the Article 5 said this. But nowadays it's consensus over all the influential judges that it doesn't and only registered journalists can say things, and only congresspeople can have their opinions. So, who knows... Anyway, it still says that decisions should be informed to the punished party and people should be able to defend themselves in a court.

mlinhares 3y ago

Not surprisingly Americans think the first amendment is a thing that exists in every single country and are surprised when other countries have laws that are not the exact copy of the US constitution.

metadat 3y ago
Where is this comment coming from? This reeks of anti-american bias, what substance does this add to the discussion?
- mlinhares 3y ago
  Just look at the other comments here saying "oh, this is not a democracy, that's now how democracy works, you can't do that" and, actually, you can, different countries have different laws, electoral law in Brazil is very strict, to the point that if you're campaigning close to voting places on election day you will be arrested and it's all fine, people mostly follow the law and don't get in trouble for it.
  - metadat 3y ago
    Who claimed Brazil is is a proper democracy? The country is largely messed up and controlled by cartels or other outside influences, similar to much of South America. Even the United States is not a true democracy, it's a cheap clone, at best -- *A Representative Republic. There's a reason mant Brazilians have migrated the United States -- Basic safety. Sources: https://www.saltwire.com/halifax/news/in-brazil-your-internet-provider-may-be-a-mobster-cops-say-100711418/ https://www.saltwire.com/halifax/news/in-brazil-your-interne... https://old.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/14o2i3q/in_some_houses_in_brazil_for_them_to_not_get/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/14o2i... Edit: Can anyone recover the link to the phone pole maintenance worker who was taken hostage in south America? I think it happened in Mexico, but memory is fuzzy. The government didn't do shit to help that guy. Terrifying.
    - mlinhares 3y ago

modeless 3y ago

> offering a glimpse into decisions that have spurred complaints of alleged censorship from the company and its billionaire owner In other words, decisions not made by the company or its "billionaire owner" at all but falsely attributed to them. > the company under [Musk's] ownership has bowed to government requests from around the world Under duress! Damned if you do, banned if you don't. In this case they actually did stand up to a government and are of course being criticized for that too. > [Musk's] crusade has been cheered on by supporters of far-right > most legal experts see [the judge's] brash tactics as legally sound and furthermore justified Could this article possibly be written in a more slanted way? To me what's going on with these orders is absurd and obviously shouldn't be allowed in a sensible democracy. Is AP really on the side of the idea that one person should have unilateral, unchecked secret ban power over every social media account in the country?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
whatisthis9 3y ago
IMO, as the CEO of Tesla, Musk should have never bought X imo from a business standpoint, even if he fully believes in full speech, because it simply traps him (most of the world has no where near as strong free speech laws as the US). In India for example, if he doesn't kowtow to the authoritarian trending Indian government in power, he risks sinking any chance of Tesla expanding its marketshare in a democracy critical to Tesla's future. The same goes for Tesla in Turkey. https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-erdogan-asks-us-elon-musk-build-tesla-factory/ https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-erdogan-asks-us-elon-... . If X starts standing up for speech there, this could sink their future plans in another valuable market. I think the fact that he backtracked on Brazil ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-16/musk-s-x-retreats-pledging-to-comply-with-brazil-court-orders https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-16/musk-s-x-... ) might also show that he also worries about Tesla's future in Brazil.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  As an owner of hard-to-censor global internet satellite constellation, positioning to offer free speech globally is quite fitting.

unclebucknasty 3y ago

Serious question: why is this flagged?

mr_toad 3y ago
Clearly by the irony impaired.

matheusmoreira 3y ago

Brazilian constitution has ample protections for free speech. Here are the words which are literally written in the brazilian constitution: > The expression of thought is free > The expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific and communication activities are free, independently of censure or license > The manifestation of thought, of creation, of expression and of information, in any form and by any process or vehicle, shall suffer no restriction > Any and all censorship of political, ideological and artistic nature is prohibited The problem is the judge who insists on "relativizing" what those words mean.

raxxorraxor 3y ago
You don't need to look to countries outside the western sphere. There are the same restrictions to privacy and speech where fear based decisions were made with the exact same excuses. It invalidates these laws in the end. Something precious is given up for marginal or even negative gain.