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X says it is closing operations in Brazil due to judge's content orders

344 points by hexage1814 2y ago

hexage1814 2y ago
Brazil is essentially living under a judicial dictatorship for the last 5 years or so. The media and press have been looking the other way (as well as actively helping in the persecution) because they didn't like the people being persecuted, so they were fine with the whole thing.
- croes 2y ago
  That would mean it happened under Jair Bolsonaro
  - dalmo3 2y ago
    The President is part of the executive branch, not the judicial branch.
  - hexage1814 2y ago
    It did. Their excuse (both the court itself as well as the media trying to justify the court's actions) was/is something among the lines of "Oh, Bolsonaro would establish a dictatorship [an hypothetical that never happen, Bolsonaro unlike the Supreme Court, never crossed a red line], so we will instead establish our actual dictatorship to prevent his dictatorship". And here we are in 2024, Bolsonaro is not president anymore, the elections (organized by people who pretty much opposed Bolsonaro btw...) are over, but the Supreme Court is still arresting people. They are still having trials were the court is the accuser, the "victim", and the judge – all in the same figure. They are still ordering profiles on social media to be blocked. They are still trying to arrest journalists abroad. They are still sentencing protesters, or at best rioters, to 17 years in prison because they broke some stuff – they accuse those random people without any real power, random common people, to have threaten the rule of law. It's bad.
    - tail_exchange 2y ago
      Not the full story. You are omitting the fact that Bolsonaro made several allegations of voter fraud on social media, and Brazil had their own version of January 6th after he lost (what you called "at best rioters"). These decisions are a response to those events, but your post paints him as a blameless victim.
    - greiskul 2y ago
      Are we just going to ignore all the people that were camping in front of military barracks? The manifesto that was going around in the Army, in support of a coup to prevent Lula from taking power? How the US government, thanks to Biden, pressured generals in Brazil to uphold democracy (which means if Trump was president, there might have been a successful coup?). We have the documents. We have the witnesses. Don't play disingenuous games and try to gaslight us that it is all in our heads. Alexandre de Moraes will go down in Brazilian history as a men who did everything to keep Brazil a democracy.
      - matthewrobertso 2y ago
        Then why does Moraes need to censor people on Twitter? If the argument is ironclad, shouldn't it be able to defend itself from speech?
      - mamonster 2y ago
        One look at the photos of Bolsonaro eating the Florida KFC immediately after the elections would tell you immediately that he never had the "it" to be a dictator, especially one that would need to actually do the regime change(and not simply inherit like Maduro).
    - thor-rodrigues 2y ago
      It sounds very misleading to frame those responsible for storming into the Congress on January 8th, while attempting to "stop the steal" that the elections supposedly were, as simply "at best rioters, to 17 years in prison because they broke some stuff". This would only sense if you also believe the rioters of 6th of January that stormed the capital also "just" broke some stuff. Otherwise, this argument is just not okay.
- silvestreh 2y ago
  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I don’t see how a government elected by the people can be considered a dictatorship. This also applies to Bolsonaro’s government as well. Just because you don’t agree with the ruling party doesn’t make it a dictatorship.
  - seydor 2y ago
    > I don’t see how a government elected by the people can be considered a dictatorship That's not how it works
    - dankle 2y ago
      Thats exactly how it works. See russa, turkey, hungary now. Germany in 1930s.
    - Teocali 2y ago
      for me that’s exactly how it’s work. For a government to be a dictatorship, you need a dictator. And one key element which define a person as a dictator is that his word is law, that’s in the name. doesn’t seem to be the case in Brazil right now. The second key element, which more implied in the modern definition of dictator, is that it stay in position of power against the will of the majority of it’s country inhabitants. Against, doesn’t seem to be the case in Brazil right now. I would welcome any elements which would invalidate my (quite incomplete, I recon) perception of the situation.
      - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        > for me that’s exactly how it’s work. For history it isn't. Read up on the fall of Wiemar Germany.
        Teocali 2y ago
        I did. And Hitler was never elected in a position of power. He strong armed the weimar republic to be named in chancellor, and only after that he held some referendum to validate his decision. Also, when he is named chancellor, it’s been a while since the democratic value of weimar were hurting. Paul Von Hindenburg started as soon as 1930 to govern through executive act, ignoring and/or strong arming the Reichstag. Not really what I would call a healthy democratic government. Also, Hitler was named as chancellor through a plot of the current weimar government to avoid calling new elections, like the laws said they must.
- epups 2y ago
  This is what the far right in Brazil wants you to believe, but it's not true. It's especially not true in regards to X, as they have repeatedly ignored judicial decisions that are very similar to those by European courts (ie, remove illegal content).
  - ilikehurdles 2y ago
    What's illegal in Brazil isn't illegal elsewhere. Their requests would impact people far outside their own jurisdiction.
    - Qwertious 2y ago
      ...how is that different to EU court rulings? Take your comment, and swap out "Brazil" with the name of any other country, and absolutely nothing changes.
  - vintermann 2y ago
    Well, one of the people calling out this insanity is Glenn Greenwald. How can he be "the far right in Brazil", when his reporting on Lava Jato is one of the main reasons Lula is not in jail any longer?
    - Qem 2y ago
      I admire Glenn, he did a great job reporting on Snowden revelations and the Vaza-Jato scandal in Brazil. I believe his stand is principled, but he appears to have the shortcoming of often trying to apply concepts from the US legal and institutional framework to places where it simply doesn't apply, like trying to fit square pegs to round holes. This sent him into a wild goose chase in this case.
    - epups 2y ago
      Greenwald is an odd one, I'll give you that. He seems to see this issue from a libertarian perspective. He would also say that Germany banning Nazi speech is censorship, for example. It's worth nothing that his last professional occupation was being a stooge in a far right show.
- Teocali 2y ago
  Quick question : what’s a judicial dictatorship, for you ?
  - meiraleal 2y ago
    Criminals facing the judicial system (and others doing crazy things to avoid it) is what's being considered a judicial dictatorship in Brazil by some. Crazy times.
- orbitingpluto 2y ago
  [flagged]
- taway2024081712 2y ago
  The seemingly unlimited[1] power of the Judiciary is showing its ugly head in many countries: Brazil, the US, Israel and many others. We take it as God-given word, but it's worth remembering that the theory of the separation of the Judiciary from the other powers came from the head of a single man, and maybe he was mistaken. There's no reason for judicial review, despite the name, be in the hands of the Judiciary and not Congress or other elected body. If laws are unclear, let those with the power to change it to determine its meaning and improve the wording. [1] Frankly, I believe this is Godel's loophole
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    The Brazilian Constitution doesn't even assign to the Judiciary unlimited power. All of it is legally subjected to the Congress. But it doesn't matter, the power is there anyway.
dudus 2y ago
Xitter is full of spam and fake news. Elon decided to take the company in this direction where everything is fair game. Things just got worse. If Xitter isn't going to up their game the legal system has to jump in and do it for them. It's not going to be pretty. Now Elon is taking their ball home. Closing the offices, firing hundreds, burning bridges. It's a power move where everyone loses but his ego.
- davidmurdoch 2y ago
  I'm guessing you're not a huge proponent of free speech? Community Notes seems to be highly effective at combatting misinformation, at least of the most popular tweets.
  - sroussey 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - misiti3780 2y ago
    ya, he/she preferred it when the nypost couldnt share a real article about hunter biden's laptop. I honestly cant believe people want to live in a world where anything (beyond the obvious illegal content like child porn, slander etc) is censored. If you dont like, it ignore it.
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - angoragoats 2y ago
        It is also completely ignoring, like most "free speech on social media" proponents do, the fact that what we're talking about is not only free speech, but also free reach, that is, the ability for the algorithms of the platform in question to amplify your "free speech" so that it reaches far more people than it otherwise would were you merely saying it out loud, in person, with your mouth, or publishing it on a regular website. Due to the above, I am adamantly against "free speech" in the context of algorithm-driven social media, and I wish that people complaining about being censored on social media would stop using the term, because they're (knowingly or not) conflating two very different ideas.
neverrroot 2y ago
When there’s nothing left to do, one does what’s needed, especially to protect the Brazilian employees from being caught in the middle.
taway2024081712 2y ago
X was being fined for not taking down certain account linked with allegedly criminal (as in anti-democratic) content. While seemingly noble, some of these accounts were from people not living in Brazil, and supposedly being read by people also not living there. So there's the question of if an American corporation should censor the (one-way?) communication between, say, two US residents at the request of a foreign government. The court should have issued a more reasonable request of restricting those accounts to be reached by accounts based in Brazil, which should restrict the judge's decision to his jurisdiction.
- addaon 2y ago
  > The court should Why? This seems to have been very effective in both accomplishing the court’s goals in this case, and improving life in Brazil a bit in general.
  - acedTrex 2y ago
    Elon is not blocking Brazilian internet traffic to X. He is removing their assets from the country physically, from the article it looks like that means divesting of legal resources quote > X claims Moraes secretly threatened one of its legal representatives in the South American country with arrest if it did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platform. Brazil's Supreme Court, where Moraes has a seat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. > The X service remains available to the people of Brazil, billionaire Elon Musk's platform said on Saturday.
  - sroussey 2y ago
    So, Estonia should be able to block anyone in the world that says anything about Estonia with low sentiment, for example?
    - tankenmate 2y ago
      If they so wish, Estonia is a sovereign country, they can block any company they want; they just need to pass a law to say so (provided of course it doesn't conflict with other laws they have).
Teocali 2y ago
When reading the article, you see that the threat seems to come after X failed to comply with legal order to block some accounts.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
xyst 2y ago
[flagged]
- solardev 2y ago
  That'd be really nice. I miss the days when companies and agencies used their own website to communicate. Twitter gives them a a lazy, shitty way out.
  - undefeated 2y ago
    Then again, we'd probably end up with all the same bullshit on Threads
  - undersuit 2y ago
    It's a massive failure of government. I shouldn't have to search down my government on a private website to get some vital or emergency information and then find my representative has been fighting with an online cow avatar.
- ineedaj0b 2y ago
  I love Twitter, it's better than anything else social media wise except this forum and another one which you aren't supposed to name to keep it pure.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
BadHumans 2y ago
> Media platform X said on Saturday it would close its operations in Brazil "effective immediately" due to what it called "censorship orders" from Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes. Elon has complied with "censorship orders" from other countries[0][1] so what makes this one so different? [0] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors-turkey-election-erdogan https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors... [1] https://theintercept.com/2023/03/28/twitter-modi-india-punjab-amritpal-singh/ https://theintercept.com/2023/03/28/twitter-modi-india-punja...
- Hamuko 2y ago
  He didn't agree with this one.
- mort96 2y ago
  Guessing the difference is that Brazil is currently controlled by a left-wing government and these censorship demands have a left-leaning bent to them, whereas India and Turkey have right-leaning governments and the censorship orders were to strengthen the right wing? Musk has been increasingly open about using his ownership of Twitter as simply a tool to champion his own political ideals, and those ideals seem to skew pretty far right.
  - kernal 2y ago
    Elon has said he’s more of a centrist. So it’s always amusing to see the far left brand him as far right because he opposes their radical ideology.
    - pohl 2y ago
      "Watch what they do, not what they say" is a useful principle, here. There's no reason to take his attempt to self-label as a centrist at face value, but there's mountains of evidence that he seeks to amplify the right.
      - ilikehurdles 2y ago
stickfigure 2y ago
The future of this is that international companies need to pick a single jurisdiction, keep their servers and employees there, fight extradition requests, and leave it up to other countries to try to block their own citizens from access. I always thought Gibson's concept of "data havens" was kind of silly; data doesn't care where it lives, why would it matter where it's physically located? But apparently he was a bit more prescient than I originally gave him credit for.
- sroussey 2y ago
  Many jurisdictions, including EU, China, and others, require data on their citizens to be hosted locally.
  - acedTrex 2y ago
    Then it would be up to those countries to block traffic to said social media companies. This is what china already does.
    - tankenmate 2y ago
      Not just block traffic, but also any payments.
  - throwawayk7h 2y ago
    what would happen if a US company, with US servers, ignored those requirements?
    - Teocali 2y ago
      It would blocked in the EU. Also the company could be asked to forbid EU customer to access the product. Wouldn’t be a big threat but it would prevent the company to do any futur business in Europe. Tech savvy customer could still access the product but that is not a market as big as every EU potential customer.
      - 2y ago
meiraleal 2y ago
As a Brazilian, I must say, great day!
- sigzero 2y ago
  No, no it is not.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
    Are you Brazilian?
    - matheusmoreira 2y ago
      I am brazilian. I don't celebrate this guy's actions. And I'm not alone.
henriquenunez 2y ago
BORA BRASIL!!!!
arp242 2y ago
I don't really use X, but I still have an account because it's just more convenient to view stuff with an account, and for better or worse, sometimes I want to view what people are saying. Typically I don't really bother flagging stuff, but recently I flagged two posts which seemed very obviously beyond the pale to me: "Zelensky is an expert on false flags (he is jewish, obviously) like Bucha" [1] "Still think it's because they are "Muslim"? Wake up. Same story in every continent on global Earth. Southern equatorial dark skins have a higher demographic percentage of low IQ and low impulse control future criminals. It's not worth mixing. https://t.co/D0lQuEUV8L https://t.co/D0lQuEUV8L" [2] (context here is the competitive racism riots in Britain last week, which makes it even worse IMO) Both flags were denied. Now, I don't really know about this specific disagreement or if blocking those accounts is reasonable or not, the story doesn't really have enough specifics on that. "Spreading fake news and hate messages" from governments can be used over-zealously or even in bad faith, but if the platform also doesn't do anything about naked unambiguous racism and antisemitism, then we clearly can't trust X on this either. [1]: https://x.com/WWIII_Affairs/status/1810377249126035535 https://x.com/WWIII_Affairs/status/1810377249126035535 [2]: https://x.com/TruthForgeX/status/1820184515190665543 https://x.com/TruthForgeX/status/1820184515190665543
- wslh 2y ago
  I think X/Twitter gives you a real taste of hate, which I personally prefer to [choose or not to] watch rather than hypocrisy. It is also a good source for studying street cultures around the world. If I were an American, I would be more concerned, for example, about weapons and fentanyl.
- johngladtj 2y ago
  What exactly do you think justifies censoring either of those examples you gave?
  - anotherape 2y ago
    This is the sort of rot you want to get rid of if you want a platform not to descend into 4chan. There is plenty of scope to criticise anything you like in society in a way that isn't just provoking hate. There are riots on the streets because of posts like this!!
olalonde 2y ago
Primary source: https://x.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1824819053061669244 https://x.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1824819053061669244
- deisteve 2y ago
  cynical part of m says X is doing this to reduce operating costs as revenue is down significantly rough 95% since Twitter went private and advertisers pulled out X premium revenue has been disappointing. Elon paid $50 billion for a company worth less than 5 billion today and its ad revenue is dropping not increasing,
virgulino 2y ago
Brazilian here. If anyone wants a great introduction to the context and the bigger picture, there's this great article from the NYT in 2022, written by an excellent reporter who lives in Brazil. I highly recommend this article to anyone who hasn't lived in Brazil for the last 10 years: "To Defend Democracy, Is Brazil’s Top Court Going Too Far?" https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/world/americas/bolsonaro-brazil-supreme-court.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/world/americas/bolsonaro-... https://archive.is/plQFT https://archive.is/plQFT It covers the judge at the center of the current issue: "Mr. Moraes has jailed five people without a trial for posts on social media that he said attacked Brazil’s institutions. He has also ordered social networks to remove thousands of posts and videos with little room for appeal. And this year, 10 of the court’s 11 justices sentenced a congressman to nearly nine years in prison for making what they said were threats against them in a livestream." Rumble has been blocked in Brazil for over a year, and WhatsApp and Telegram have been briefly blocked multiple times.
- addicted 2y ago
  None of this is unique to Brazil and happens in countries all over the world where X continues to operate.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - jsheard 2y ago
    Regarding takedown demands, Twitter used to publish transparency reports on who was making them, but they stopped after Musk took over. https://transparency.x.com/en/reports/removal-requests https://transparency.x.com/en/reports/removal-requests In the final report 97% of all takedowns were made by Japan, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, and India (from most to least). They also broke down the number of takedowns against verified journalists and news outlets, which was led by India (114 takedowns), Turkey (78), Russia (55), and Pakistan (48), and Brazil was down the list with 8. It would be nice to have a more recent version of this report to see which way the tides have shifted.
bottlepalm 2y ago
I'm glad X was taken private so they can do stuff like this without worrying about the effects on the public market. It's been too easy to push through censorship on social media platforms, I'm glad at least one has the strength to push back.
- deisteve 2y ago
  Same. But I somehow doubt that Elon paid a premium of 1000% for Twitter for free speech. Its more likely that after he scared away all the advertisers, him doubling down as "champion of free speech" was the only face saving act If you think about it, paying $50 billion dollars and then within two years ending up with a company worth 95% less isn't very smart. Sure Elon might be a centi-billionaire but a lot of it comes from Tesla which also is struggling. For the little guys, his loss is a gain for us all. I especially love that he openly supports Trump
- TaylorAlexander 2y ago
  Doesn’t X censor usage of the word “cisgender”?
  - bottlepalm 2y ago
    Do a search for it and find out. (The answer is no)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
csouzaf 2y ago
Brazilian here. I find it very bad when someone from another country criticizes our Supreme Court, especially when it seems driven by ideological motivations. As others have pointed out, similar situations occur in other countries without bring Elon's comments Brazil doesn't have an equivalent to the U.S. First Amendment, and that's not necessarily a problem. Our legal framework reflects our historical and cultural context. Why he feel the need to impose his vision of what's best for Brazil, without fully taking account our legal and social nuances?
- quotemstr 2y ago
  The UN declaration of human rights speaks to free expression being fundamental to human flourishing. As an American, I'm not terribly inclined to accept cultural relativism when it comes to censorship. Governments banning political speech they dislike is always and everywhere tyrannical.
  - csouzaf 2y ago
    I don't think it's comments they dislike. I think it's accounts spreading fake news and feeding a narrative of 'current government bad' to impose what they think is the right way. I mean, there are limits, and they're being imposed by the force of law
    - quotemstr 2y ago
      It doesn't work that way. Any ability to ban "fake news" immediately becomes a vehicle for banning inconvenient news. It's part of human nature. I don't have to list the dozens recent examples of "fake" news turning out to be true. There's a reason that Orwell's censorship body was called the "ministry of truth". Governments shouldn't touch censorship for the same reason alcoholics shouldn't touch booze.
      - csouzaf 2y ago
        There should be a line drawn in the sand. When it is crossed, something should happen to preserve the well-being of everybody
paul7986 2y ago
X is now 4chan to faces of death as i just was scrolling through and saw CTV security footage a guy suckering punch a guy .. the victim got up.. hurried out the door then turned around a point blank shot his assailant and it was gruesome. Ive never something like that and was fine with not seeing such before. Yet X is a trainwreck I am drawn ever more to especially with Grok 2 images.
- ineedaj0b 2y ago
  click under the video and choose 'not interested'. you wouldn't have liked the internet in 2000s. there were isis beheading videos to stumble upon randomly.
  - arp242 2y ago
    > you wouldn't have liked the internet in 2000s. there were isis beheading videos to stumble upon randomly. What are you trying to say? That this was somehow a good thing? And you can say "you wouldn't have liked «something in the past», there was «something worse than today» going on!" on pretty much anything.
chairmansteve 2y ago
He huffs and puffs about democracies blocking single accounts, but is quite content when Xi blocks twitter in it's entirety.
- seydor 2y ago
  It seems most people here would rather he did nothing
- cryptonector 2y ago
  What would you have him do in that case? Maybe load a starship with tungsten and drop it on Xi?
thih9 2y ago
> "To protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately," X said. Would they also fire said staff because they have now ceased operations in Brazil? Hopefully not. Still, I’d like to see a follow up, confirming that this action indeed benefited the employees, as they claim.
jrflowers 2y ago
This is neither here nor there but does anyone know what content/account(s) was ordered “censored”?
- meiraleal 2y ago
  life threats to the judge, harassment of surpreme court family members, fake stories about relationships with mafia. All of them links with adsense ad monetization on youtube, obviously.
0xcb0 2y ago
Tbh, sometime I wish the same would happen in whole europe. This platform is out of control. It's threatening democracy if it keeps on publishing fake news en mass with no control whatsoever. Let the platform die, it was a good time. But it's time for sth. new that keeps society intact.
Yeul 2y ago
Lucky bastards.
- anotherape 2y ago
  National pi hole :)
vouaobrasil 2y ago
Not surprising. Shit happens in Brazil, and it's a lot different than it is in North America. I wouldn't have believed it myself (as a Canadian) if I had not lived here for almost two years. It's like a labrynthine system filled with corruption and the unwritten rules that make anything very difficult down here unless you are a master of those rules, or the jeitinho brasileiro... Basically, even in daily life, anything that you KNOW is easy in North America is a real pain in the ass down here.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  > Not surprising. Shit happens in Brazil, and it's a lot different than it is in North America. Yeah. Brazil should follow he US lead and demand nationalization of Twitter.
dhosek 2y ago
It’s only some government censorship that Twitter objects to. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/08/india-twitter-online-censorship/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/08/india-twitte... https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65609123 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65609123 Musk is not a free speech absolutist: he puts his thumb on the scales to promote the speech he likes while cheerfully suppressing that which he does not.
- danlugo92 2y ago
  2nd article is opinion by wikipedia founder, one of the most censored and astroturfed websites there is
gverrilla 2y ago
X for Xandão
stonethrowaway 2y ago
> X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, claims Moraes secretly threatened one of the company's legal representatives in the South American country with arrest if it did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platform. I agree with this decision. If it was my staff a judge was bullying and threatening, I’d close up shop too. It paints a very bad picture for the ethics of the country. Brazil should be ashamed to have a person like this presiding over matters of law.
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  Many of us are ashamed. Myself included.
mmooss 2y ago
It's interesting that Musk is willing to throw away money: The ~$40B he spent on Twitter (though he did try to back out), the destruction he's wrought on Twitter/X's revenue by trolling and by censoring (journalists, etc., including by blocking, reducing their reach, and suing them), by pushing his far right social agenda (including by allowing hate and violence on Twitter/X), by suing major business partners, and now by abandoning a major market. Does any other businessperson behave this way? And the things he advocates are absurd; they have no value to Twitter/X or to society.
h_tbob 2y ago
All right, I have a suggestion. In the modern day, nobody should be able to be put in jail without a jury. The amount of times people go to jail based on somebody just literally, waking up on the wrong side of the bed is a lot higher than you’d think. For example studies show that the time of day your sentencing occurs is a factor on your punishment. The problem with letting judges throw people in jail for any reason is simple: I watched a sniper movie. The young junior sniper who had never killed asked the older experienced guy what it feels like. He said at first he felt awful. But as he killed more, he said “what’s even worse is I don’t even feel anything at all” When you have people who are allowed to imprison humans and they do it regularly, they will inevitably lose the same feeling that a regular citizen goes thru. You should feel something very deeply because you are about to do something very big. So I recommend reform such that only a jury who doesn’t have experience imprisoning people have the ability to do it.
Overtonwindow 2y ago
Any expansion of government power is wrong.
fagrobot 2y ago
[dead]
cynicalpeace 2y ago
Strong first amendment-like system solves all these questions. Not complicated
- meiraleal 2y ago
  Tiktok case proved you are wrong.
  - cynicalpeace 2y ago
    In what way?
    - meiraleal 2y ago
      The government is limiting the freedom of speech of all Americans in one go. "You can say whatever you want" but only on the vetted apps is not freedom of speech.
      - cynicalpeace 2y ago
        It's not going to pass muster. At least it wouldn't in a "strong first amendment like system"
worewood 2y ago
Be aware that the brazilian tech-literate tend to have far-right opinions, and as such like to think that there is a dictatorship because they're not able to voice opinions defending violence or discrimination openly.

344 points by hexage1814 2y ago

Brazil is essentially living under a judicial dictatorship for the last 5 years or so. The media and press have been looking the other way (as well as actively helping in the persecution) because they didn't like the people being persecuted, so they were fine with the whole thing.

croes 2y ago
That would mean it happened under Jair Bolsonaro
- dalmo3 2y ago
  The President is part of the executive branch, not the judicial branch.
- hexage1814 2y ago
  It did. Their excuse (both the court itself as well as the media trying to justify the court's actions) was/is something among the lines of "Oh, Bolsonaro would establish a dictatorship [an hypothetical that never happen, Bolsonaro unlike the Supreme Court, never crossed a red line], so we will instead establish our actual dictatorship to prevent his dictatorship". And here we are in 2024, Bolsonaro is not president anymore, the elections (organized by people who pretty much opposed Bolsonaro btw...) are over, but the Supreme Court is still arresting people. They are still having trials were the court is the accuser, the "victim", and the judge – all in the same figure. They are still ordering profiles on social media to be blocked. They are still trying to arrest journalists abroad. They are still sentencing protesters, or at best rioters, to 17 years in prison because they broke some stuff – they accuse those random people without any real power, random common people, to have threaten the rule of law. It's bad.
  - tail_exchange 2y ago
    Not the full story. You are omitting the fact that Bolsonaro made several allegations of voter fraud on social media, and Brazil had their own version of January 6th after he lost (what you called "at best rioters"). These decisions are a response to those events, but your post paints him as a blameless victim.
  - greiskul 2y ago
    Are we just going to ignore all the people that were camping in front of military barracks? The manifesto that was going around in the Army, in support of a coup to prevent Lula from taking power? How the US government, thanks to Biden, pressured generals in Brazil to uphold democracy (which means if Trump was president, there might have been a successful coup?). We have the documents. We have the witnesses. Don't play disingenuous games and try to gaslight us that it is all in our heads. Alexandre de Moraes will go down in Brazilian history as a men who did everything to keep Brazil a democracy.
    - matthewrobertso 2y ago
      Then why does Moraes need to censor people on Twitter? If the argument is ironclad, shouldn't it be able to defend itself from speech?
    - mamonster 2y ago
      One look at the photos of Bolsonaro eating the Florida KFC immediately after the elections would tell you immediately that he never had the "it" to be a dictator, especially one that would need to actually do the regime change(and not simply inherit like Maduro).
  - thor-rodrigues 2y ago
    It sounds very misleading to frame those responsible for storming into the Congress on January 8th, while attempting to "stop the steal" that the elections supposedly were, as simply "at best rioters, to 17 years in prison because they broke some stuff". This would only sense if you also believe the rioters of 6th of January that stormed the capital also "just" broke some stuff. Otherwise, this argument is just not okay.
silvestreh 2y ago
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I don’t see how a government elected by the people can be considered a dictatorship. This also applies to Bolsonaro’s government as well. Just because you don’t agree with the ruling party doesn’t make it a dictatorship.
- seydor 2y ago
  > I don’t see how a government elected by the people can be considered a dictatorship That's not how it works
  - dankle 2y ago
    Thats exactly how it works. See russa, turkey, hungary now. Germany in 1930s.
  - Teocali 2y ago
    for me that’s exactly how it’s work. For a government to be a dictatorship, you need a dictator. And one key element which define a person as a dictator is that his word is law, that’s in the name. doesn’t seem to be the case in Brazil right now. The second key element, which more implied in the modern definition of dictator, is that it stay in position of power against the will of the majority of it’s country inhabitants. Against, doesn’t seem to be the case in Brazil right now. I would welcome any elements which would invalidate my (quite incomplete, I recon) perception of the situation.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      > for me that’s exactly how it’s work. For history it isn't. Read up on the fall of Wiemar Germany.
      - Teocali 2y ago
        I did. And Hitler was never elected in a position of power. He strong armed the weimar republic to be named in chancellor, and only after that he held some referendum to validate his decision. Also, when he is named chancellor, it’s been a while since the democratic value of weimar were hurting. Paul Von Hindenburg started as soon as 1930 to govern through executive act, ignoring and/or strong arming the Reichstag. Not really what I would call a healthy democratic government. Also, Hitler was named as chancellor through a plot of the current weimar government to avoid calling new elections, like the laws said they must.
epups 2y ago
This is what the far right in Brazil wants you to believe, but it's not true. It's especially not true in regards to X, as they have repeatedly ignored judicial decisions that are very similar to those by European courts (ie, remove illegal content).
- ilikehurdles 2y ago
  What's illegal in Brazil isn't illegal elsewhere. Their requests would impact people far outside their own jurisdiction.
  - Qwertious 2y ago
    ...how is that different to EU court rulings? Take your comment, and swap out "Brazil" with the name of any other country, and absolutely nothing changes.
- vintermann 2y ago
  Well, one of the people calling out this insanity is Glenn Greenwald. How can he be "the far right in Brazil", when his reporting on Lava Jato is one of the main reasons Lula is not in jail any longer?
  - Qem 2y ago
    I admire Glenn, he did a great job reporting on Snowden revelations and the Vaza-Jato scandal in Brazil. I believe his stand is principled, but he appears to have the shortcoming of often trying to apply concepts from the US legal and institutional framework to places where it simply doesn't apply, like trying to fit square pegs to round holes. This sent him into a wild goose chase in this case.
  - epups 2y ago
    Greenwald is an odd one, I'll give you that. He seems to see this issue from a libertarian perspective. He would also say that Germany banning Nazi speech is censorship, for example. It's worth nothing that his last professional occupation was being a stooge in a far right show.
Teocali 2y ago
Quick question : what’s a judicial dictatorship, for you ?
- meiraleal 2y ago
  Criminals facing the judicial system (and others doing crazy things to avoid it) is what's being considered a judicial dictatorship in Brazil by some. Crazy times.
orbitingpluto 2y ago
[flagged]
taway2024081712 2y ago
The seemingly unlimited[1] power of the Judiciary is showing its ugly head in many countries: Brazil, the US, Israel and many others. We take it as God-given word, but it's worth remembering that the theory of the separation of the Judiciary from the other powers came from the head of a single man, and maybe he was mistaken. There's no reason for judicial review, despite the name, be in the hands of the Judiciary and not Congress or other elected body. If laws are unclear, let those with the power to change it to determine its meaning and improve the wording. [1] Frankly, I believe this is Godel's loophole
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  The Brazilian Constitution doesn't even assign to the Judiciary unlimited power. All of it is legally subjected to the Congress. But it doesn't matter, the power is there anyway.

dudus 2y ago

Xitter is full of spam and fake news. Elon decided to take the company in this direction where everything is fair game. Things just got worse. If Xitter isn't going to up their game the legal system has to jump in and do it for them. It's not going to be pretty. Now Elon is taking their ball home. Closing the offices, firing hundreds, burning bridges. It's a power move where everyone loses but his ego.

davidmurdoch 2y ago
I'm guessing you're not a huge proponent of free speech? Community Notes seems to be highly effective at combatting misinformation, at least of the most popular tweets.
- sroussey 2y ago
  [flagged]
- misiti3780 2y ago
  ya, he/she preferred it when the nypost couldnt share a real article about hunter biden's laptop. I honestly cant believe people want to live in a world where anything (beyond the obvious illegal content like child porn, slander etc) is censored. If you dont like, it ignore it.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - angoragoats 2y ago
      It is also completely ignoring, like most "free speech on social media" proponents do, the fact that what we're talking about is not only free speech, but also free reach, that is, the ability for the algorithms of the platform in question to amplify your "free speech" so that it reaches far more people than it otherwise would were you merely saying it out loud, in person, with your mouth, or publishing it on a regular website. Due to the above, I am adamantly against "free speech" in the context of algorithm-driven social media, and I wish that people complaining about being censored on social media would stop using the term, because they're (knowingly or not) conflating two very different ideas.

neverrroot 2y ago

When there’s nothing left to do, one does what’s needed, especially to protect the Brazilian employees from being caught in the middle.

taway2024081712 2y ago

X was being fined for not taking down certain account linked with allegedly criminal (as in anti-democratic) content. While seemingly noble, some of these accounts were from people not living in Brazil, and supposedly being read by people also not living there. So there's the question of if an American corporation should censor the (one-way?) communication between, say, two US residents at the request of a foreign government. The court should have issued a more reasonable request of restricting those accounts to be reached by accounts based in Brazil, which should restrict the judge's decision to his jurisdiction.

addaon 2y ago
> The court should Why? This seems to have been very effective in both accomplishing the court’s goals in this case, and improving life in Brazil a bit in general.
- acedTrex 2y ago
  Elon is not blocking Brazilian internet traffic to X. He is removing their assets from the country physically, from the article it looks like that means divesting of legal resources quote > X claims Moraes secretly threatened one of its legal representatives in the South American country with arrest if it did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platform. Brazil's Supreme Court, where Moraes has a seat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. > The X service remains available to the people of Brazil, billionaire Elon Musk's platform said on Saturday.
- sroussey 2y ago
  So, Estonia should be able to block anyone in the world that says anything about Estonia with low sentiment, for example?
  - tankenmate 2y ago
    If they so wish, Estonia is a sovereign country, they can block any company they want; they just need to pass a law to say so (provided of course it doesn't conflict with other laws they have).

Teocali 2y ago

When reading the article, you see that the threat seems to come after X failed to comply with legal order to block some accounts.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

xyst 2y ago

[flagged]

solardev 2y ago
That'd be really nice. I miss the days when companies and agencies used their own website to communicate. Twitter gives them a a lazy, shitty way out.
- undefeated 2y ago
  Then again, we'd probably end up with all the same bullshit on Threads
- undersuit 2y ago
  It's a massive failure of government. I shouldn't have to search down my government on a private website to get some vital or emergency information and then find my representative has been fighting with an online cow avatar.
ineedaj0b 2y ago
I love Twitter, it's better than anything else social media wise except this forum and another one which you aren't supposed to name to keep it pure.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

BadHumans 2y ago

> Media platform X said on Saturday it would close its operations in Brazil "effective immediately" due to what it called "censorship orders" from Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes. Elon has complied with "censorship orders" from other countries[0][1] so what makes this one so different? [0] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors-turkey-election-erdogan https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors... [1] https://theintercept.com/2023/03/28/twitter-modi-india-punjab-amritpal-singh/ https://theintercept.com/2023/03/28/twitter-modi-india-punja...

Hamuko 2y ago
He didn't agree with this one.
mort96 2y ago
Guessing the difference is that Brazil is currently controlled by a left-wing government and these censorship demands have a left-leaning bent to them, whereas India and Turkey have right-leaning governments and the censorship orders were to strengthen the right wing? Musk has been increasingly open about using his ownership of Twitter as simply a tool to champion his own political ideals, and those ideals seem to skew pretty far right.
- kernal 2y ago
  Elon has said he’s more of a centrist. So it’s always amusing to see the far left brand him as far right because he opposes their radical ideology.
  - pohl 2y ago
    "Watch what they do, not what they say" is a useful principle, here. There's no reason to take his attempt to self-label as a centrist at face value, but there's mountains of evidence that he seeks to amplify the right.
    - ilikehurdles 2y ago

stickfigure 2y ago

The future of this is that international companies need to pick a single jurisdiction, keep their servers and employees there, fight extradition requests, and leave it up to other countries to try to block their own citizens from access. I always thought Gibson's concept of "data havens" was kind of silly; data doesn't care where it lives, why would it matter where it's physically located? But apparently he was a bit more prescient than I originally gave him credit for.

sroussey 2y ago
Many jurisdictions, including EU, China, and others, require data on their citizens to be hosted locally.
- acedTrex 2y ago
  Then it would be up to those countries to block traffic to said social media companies. This is what china already does.
  - tankenmate 2y ago
    Not just block traffic, but also any payments.
- throwawayk7h 2y ago
  what would happen if a US company, with US servers, ignored those requirements?
  - Teocali 2y ago
    It would blocked in the EU. Also the company could be asked to forbid EU customer to access the product. Wouldn’t be a big threat but it would prevent the company to do any futur business in Europe. Tech savvy customer could still access the product but that is not a market as big as every EU potential customer.
    - 2y ago

meiraleal 2y ago

As a Brazilian, I must say, great day!

sigzero 2y ago
No, no it is not.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  Are you Brazilian?
  - matheusmoreira 2y ago
    I am brazilian. I don't celebrate this guy's actions. And I'm not alone.

henriquenunez 2y ago

BORA BRASIL!!!!

arp242 2y ago

I don't really use X, but I still have an account because it's just more convenient to view stuff with an account, and for better or worse, sometimes I want to view what people are saying. Typically I don't really bother flagging stuff, but recently I flagged two posts which seemed very obviously beyond the pale to me: "Zelensky is an expert on false flags (he is jewish, obviously) like Bucha" [1] "Still think it's because they are "Muslim"? Wake up. Same story in every continent on global Earth. Southern equatorial dark skins have a higher demographic percentage of low IQ and low impulse control future criminals. It's not worth mixing. https://t.co/D0lQuEUV8L https://t.co/D0lQuEUV8L" [2] (context here is the competitive racism riots in Britain last week, which makes it even worse IMO) Both flags were denied. Now, I don't really know about this specific disagreement or if blocking those accounts is reasonable or not, the story doesn't really have enough specifics on that. "Spreading fake news and hate messages" from governments can be used over-zealously or even in bad faith, but if the platform also doesn't do anything about naked unambiguous racism and antisemitism, then we clearly can't trust X on this either. [1]: https://x.com/WWIII_Affairs/status/1810377249126035535 https://x.com/WWIII_Affairs/status/1810377249126035535 [2]: https://x.com/TruthForgeX/status/1820184515190665543 https://x.com/TruthForgeX/status/1820184515190665543

wslh 2y ago
I think X/Twitter gives you a real taste of hate, which I personally prefer to [choose or not to] watch rather than hypocrisy. It is also a good source for studying street cultures around the world. If I were an American, I would be more concerned, for example, about weapons and fentanyl.
johngladtj 2y ago
What exactly do you think justifies censoring either of those examples you gave?
- anotherape 2y ago
  This is the sort of rot you want to get rid of if you want a platform not to descend into 4chan. There is plenty of scope to criticise anything you like in society in a way that isn't just provoking hate. There are riots on the streets because of posts like this!!

olalonde 2y ago

Primary source: https://x.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1824819053061669244 https://x.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1824819053061669244

deisteve 2y ago
cynical part of m says X is doing this to reduce operating costs as revenue is down significantly rough 95% since Twitter went private and advertisers pulled out X premium revenue has been disappointing. Elon paid $50 billion for a company worth less than 5 billion today and its ad revenue is dropping not increasing,

virgulino 2y ago

Brazilian here. If anyone wants a great introduction to the context and the bigger picture, there's this great article from the NYT in 2022, written by an excellent reporter who lives in Brazil. I highly recommend this article to anyone who hasn't lived in Brazil for the last 10 years: "To Defend Democracy, Is Brazil’s Top Court Going Too Far?" https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/world/americas/bolsonaro-brazil-supreme-court.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/world/americas/bolsonaro-... https://archive.is/plQFT https://archive.is/plQFT It covers the judge at the center of the current issue: "Mr. Moraes has jailed five people without a trial for posts on social media that he said attacked Brazil’s institutions. He has also ordered social networks to remove thousands of posts and videos with little room for appeal. And this year, 10 of the court’s 11 justices sentenced a congressman to nearly nine years in prison for making what they said were threats against them in a livestream." Rumble has been blocked in Brazil for over a year, and WhatsApp and Telegram have been briefly blocked multiple times.

addicted 2y ago
None of this is unique to Brazil and happens in countries all over the world where X continues to operate.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jsheard 2y ago
  Regarding takedown demands, Twitter used to publish transparency reports on who was making them, but they stopped after Musk took over. https://transparency.x.com/en/reports/removal-requests https://transparency.x.com/en/reports/removal-requests In the final report 97% of all takedowns were made by Japan, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, and India (from most to least). They also broke down the number of takedowns against verified journalists and news outlets, which was led by India (114 takedowns), Turkey (78), Russia (55), and Pakistan (48), and Brazil was down the list with 8. It would be nice to have a more recent version of this report to see which way the tides have shifted.

bottlepalm 2y ago

I'm glad X was taken private so they can do stuff like this without worrying about the effects on the public market. It's been too easy to push through censorship on social media platforms, I'm glad at least one has the strength to push back.

deisteve 2y ago
Same. But I somehow doubt that Elon paid a premium of 1000% for Twitter for free speech. Its more likely that after he scared away all the advertisers, him doubling down as "champion of free speech" was the only face saving act If you think about it, paying $50 billion dollars and then within two years ending up with a company worth 95% less isn't very smart. Sure Elon might be a centi-billionaire but a lot of it comes from Tesla which also is struggling. For the little guys, his loss is a gain for us all. I especially love that he openly supports Trump
TaylorAlexander 2y ago
Doesn’t X censor usage of the word “cisgender”?
- bottlepalm 2y ago
  Do a search for it and find out. (The answer is no)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

csouzaf 2y ago

Brazilian here. I find it very bad when someone from another country criticizes our Supreme Court, especially when it seems driven by ideological motivations. As others have pointed out, similar situations occur in other countries without bring Elon's comments Brazil doesn't have an equivalent to the U.S. First Amendment, and that's not necessarily a problem. Our legal framework reflects our historical and cultural context. Why he feel the need to impose his vision of what's best for Brazil, without fully taking account our legal and social nuances?

quotemstr 2y ago
The UN declaration of human rights speaks to free expression being fundamental to human flourishing. As an American, I'm not terribly inclined to accept cultural relativism when it comes to censorship. Governments banning political speech they dislike is always and everywhere tyrannical.
- csouzaf 2y ago
  I don't think it's comments they dislike. I think it's accounts spreading fake news and feeding a narrative of 'current government bad' to impose what they think is the right way. I mean, there are limits, and they're being imposed by the force of law
  - quotemstr 2y ago
    It doesn't work that way. Any ability to ban "fake news" immediately becomes a vehicle for banning inconvenient news. It's part of human nature. I don't have to list the dozens recent examples of "fake" news turning out to be true. There's a reason that Orwell's censorship body was called the "ministry of truth". Governments shouldn't touch censorship for the same reason alcoholics shouldn't touch booze.
    - csouzaf 2y ago
      There should be a line drawn in the sand. When it is crossed, something should happen to preserve the well-being of everybody

paul7986 2y ago

X is now 4chan to faces of death as i just was scrolling through and saw CTV security footage a guy suckering punch a guy .. the victim got up.. hurried out the door then turned around a point blank shot his assailant and it was gruesome. Ive never something like that and was fine with not seeing such before. Yet X is a trainwreck I am drawn ever more to especially with Grok 2 images.

ineedaj0b 2y ago
click under the video and choose 'not interested'. you wouldn't have liked the internet in 2000s. there were isis beheading videos to stumble upon randomly.
- arp242 2y ago
  > you wouldn't have liked the internet in 2000s. there were isis beheading videos to stumble upon randomly. What are you trying to say? That this was somehow a good thing? And you can say "you wouldn't have liked «something in the past», there was «something worse than today» going on!" on pretty much anything.

chairmansteve 2y ago

He huffs and puffs about democracies blocking single accounts, but is quite content when Xi blocks twitter in it's entirety.

seydor 2y ago
It seems most people here would rather he did nothing
cryptonector 2y ago
What would you have him do in that case? Maybe load a starship with tungsten and drop it on Xi?

thih9 2y ago

> "To protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately," X said. Would they also fire said staff because they have now ceased operations in Brazil? Hopefully not. Still, I’d like to see a follow up, confirming that this action indeed benefited the employees, as they claim.

jrflowers 2y ago

This is neither here nor there but does anyone know what content/account(s) was ordered “censored”?

meiraleal 2y ago
life threats to the judge, harassment of surpreme court family members, fake stories about relationships with mafia. All of them links with adsense ad monetization on youtube, obviously.

0xcb0 2y ago

Tbh, sometime I wish the same would happen in whole europe. This platform is out of control. It's threatening democracy if it keeps on publishing fake news en mass with no control whatsoever. Let the platform die, it was a good time. But it's time for sth. new that keeps society intact.

Yeul 2y ago

Lucky bastards.

anotherape 2y ago
National pi hole :)

vouaobrasil 2y ago

Not surprising. Shit happens in Brazil, and it's a lot different than it is in North America. I wouldn't have believed it myself (as a Canadian) if I had not lived here for almost two years. It's like a labrynthine system filled with corruption and the unwritten rules that make anything very difficult down here unless you are a master of those rules, or the jeitinho brasileiro... Basically, even in daily life, anything that you KNOW is easy in North America is a real pain in the ass down here.

meiraleal 2y ago
> Not surprising. Shit happens in Brazil, and it's a lot different than it is in North America. Yeah. Brazil should follow he US lead and demand nationalization of Twitter.

dhosek 2y ago

It’s only some government censorship that Twitter objects to. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/08/india-twitter-online-censorship/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/08/india-twitte... https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65609123 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65609123 Musk is not a free speech absolutist: he puts his thumb on the scales to promote the speech he likes while cheerfully suppressing that which he does not.

danlugo92 2y ago
2nd article is opinion by wikipedia founder, one of the most censored and astroturfed websites there is

gverrilla 2y ago

X for Xandão

stonethrowaway 2y ago

> X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, claims Moraes secretly threatened one of the company's legal representatives in the South American country with arrest if it did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platform. I agree with this decision. If it was my staff a judge was bullying and threatening, I’d close up shop too. It paints a very bad picture for the ethics of the country. Brazil should be ashamed to have a person like this presiding over matters of law.

matheusmoreira 2y ago
Many of us are ashamed. Myself included.

mmooss 2y ago

It's interesting that Musk is willing to throw away money: The ~$40B he spent on Twitter (though he did try to back out), the destruction he's wrought on Twitter/X's revenue by trolling and by censoring (journalists, etc., including by blocking, reducing their reach, and suing them), by pushing his far right social agenda (including by allowing hate and violence on Twitter/X), by suing major business partners, and now by abandoning a major market. Does any other businessperson behave this way? And the things he advocates are absurd; they have no value to Twitter/X or to society.

h_tbob 2y ago

All right, I have a suggestion. In the modern day, nobody should be able to be put in jail without a jury. The amount of times people go to jail based on somebody just literally, waking up on the wrong side of the bed is a lot higher than you’d think. For example studies show that the time of day your sentencing occurs is a factor on your punishment. The problem with letting judges throw people in jail for any reason is simple: I watched a sniper movie. The young junior sniper who had never killed asked the older experienced guy what it feels like. He said at first he felt awful. But as he killed more, he said “what’s even worse is I don’t even feel anything at all” When you have people who are allowed to imprison humans and they do it regularly, they will inevitably lose the same feeling that a regular citizen goes thru. You should feel something very deeply because you are about to do something very big. So I recommend reform such that only a jury who doesn’t have experience imprisoning people have the ability to do it.

Overtonwindow 2y ago

Any expansion of government power is wrong.

fagrobot 2y ago

[dead]

cynicalpeace 2y ago

Strong first amendment-like system solves all these questions. Not complicated

meiraleal 2y ago
Tiktok case proved you are wrong.
- cynicalpeace 2y ago
  In what way?
  - meiraleal 2y ago
    The government is limiting the freedom of speech of all Americans in one go. "You can say whatever you want" but only on the vetted apps is not freedom of speech.
    - cynicalpeace 2y ago
      It's not going to pass muster. At least it wouldn't in a "strong first amendment like system"

worewood 2y ago

Be aware that the brazilian tech-literate tend to have far-right opinions, and as such like to think that there is a dictatorship because they're not able to voice opinions defending violence or discrimination openly.