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Twitter also pulled out of Brazil. While I presume Musk is at least partially playing this up, they apparently got some kind of secret court order. Anyone has

Twitter also pulled out of Brazil. While I presume Musk is at least partially playing this up, they apparently got some kind of secret court order. Anyone has any idea what's going on down there?

ryandrake 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41275600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41275600
zo1 2y ago
The link details posted to you by the other commenter might be one part of why Twitter left Brazil. But there could be "more devious" stuff happening behind the scenes. If that's the case, and with Twitter being a tad too twitchy or zealous (for whatever reason), they may end up being a really good "canary in the coalmine" for weird and shadowy government orders/letters.
KerrAvon 2y ago
Twitter is bleeding money. Seems likely Musk will use any excuse to shut down ongoing expenses he doesn't think he needs anymore.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
trompetenaccoun 2y ago
They threatened to arrest Brazilian Twitter employees because the company refused to hand over user private info (IPs). Apparently some of the users on the demand list aren't even based in Brazil. Things don't seem to be going well down there.
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  Things aren't going well at all. Relevant news: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-14/leaked-messages-ignite-firestorm-around-crusading-brazil-judge https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-14/leaked-me... https://web.archive.org/web/20240818034709/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-14/leaked-messages-ignite-firestorm-around-crusading-brazil-judge https://web.archive.org/web/20240818034709/https://www.bloom...
thiagoharry 2y ago
Nothing exactly new. Brazilian laws allow court orders that remove online content in case of hate speech, defamation, threatenings or for the benefit of some ongoing investigation. The only new thing is that in recent years, several far right activists were targeted by investigation, related with a botched coup attempt which was equivalent to the capitolio invasion in the USA. Then, several of them are denouncing this as "censorship", even if in the past the same laws were used by Bolsonaro and far right activists to remove content in the Internet, as when someone threatened the ex-president online. Musk joined them, and begun ignoring court orders, despite complying with equivalent court orders from other countries. After ignoring several court orders, Twitter had to withdraw from the country to do not face legal consequences. About VPN: As far as I know, there is no previous case in Brazil where VPN services were targeted. Apple do not have a huge market share in Brazil (just 16.54% for iOS), so it would be very strange trying to block something there. I do not think that blocking VPN makes any sense and I would wait for Apple pronouncement before suggesting "censorship" or something like this.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
The media is not exploring this conflict between Twitter/X and Brazil correctly. What’s happening is that one justice on their Supreme Court equivalent, Alexander de Moraes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_de_Moraes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_de_Moraes), has been abusing his position to illegally suppress political opposition. You can read about it in this thread: https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1775516415023251835 https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1775516415023251835 Note that Twitter is not refusing to comply with local laws. They’re saying that the orders from Moraes are not legal under Brazilian law, and therefore they are refusing to comply. Moraes is one justice. There is a due process there. You can’t just arbitrarily order bans on social media accounts or call for people of the opposing political camp to be arrested for illegal speech, even in Brazil. Moraes, for his part, claims he was given the power to unilaterally censor speech and arrest violators by the Superior Electoral Court (a different court from the one he is a sitting justice on). Which makes no sense, since the courts cannot make up laws, since they are not the legislature. By the way Musk isn’t the only one criticized Moraes. Even the New York Times wrote an article that labeled him as a threat to Brazilian democracy, as have various press organizations: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/world/americas/brazil-alexandre-de-moraes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/world/americas/brazil-ale... More disturbingly, their new leader Lula - who has a history of corruption and authoritarianism - has been calling for criminalizing lies, whatever that means: https://www.public.news/p/brazil-should-terrify-you https://www.public.news/p/brazil-should-terrify-you
matheusmoreira 2y ago
The situation has been brewing for around half a decade now. Basically the supreme court gave itself limitless powers to investigate and judge "fake news". Their powers have only expanded since then. Before the elections they started engaging in blatantly unconstitutional behavior like political censorship. They don't seem to be slowing down. These are great comments from fellow brazilian HNers, I always point to them whenever context is needed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36543423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36543423 I also submitted this bit of news here on HN back in 2022: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/world/americas/brazil-online-content-misinformation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/world/americas/brazil-onl...

Twitter also pulled out of Brazil. While I presume Musk is at least partially playing this up, they apparently got some kind of secret court order. Anyone has any idea what's going on down there?

ryandrake 2y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41275600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41275600

zo1 2y ago

The link details posted to you by the other commenter might be one part of why Twitter left Brazil. But there could be "more devious" stuff happening behind the scenes. If that's the case, and with Twitter being a tad too twitchy or zealous (for whatever reason), they may end up being a really good "canary in the coalmine" for weird and shadowy government orders/letters.

KerrAvon 2y ago

Twitter is bleeding money. Seems likely Musk will use any excuse to shut down ongoing expenses he doesn't think he needs anymore.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

trompetenaccoun 2y ago

They threatened to arrest Brazilian Twitter employees because the company refused to hand over user private info (IPs). Apparently some of the users on the demand list aren't even based in Brazil. Things don't seem to be going well down there.

matheusmoreira 2y ago
Things aren't going well at all. Relevant news: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-14/leaked-messages-ignite-firestorm-around-crusading-brazil-judge https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-14/leaked-me... https://web.archive.org/web/20240818034709/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-14/leaked-messages-ignite-firestorm-around-crusading-brazil-judge https://web.archive.org/web/20240818034709/https://www.bloom...

thiagoharry 2y ago

Nothing exactly new. Brazilian laws allow court orders that remove online content in case of hate speech, defamation, threatenings or for the benefit of some ongoing investigation. The only new thing is that in recent years, several far right activists were targeted by investigation, related with a botched coup attempt which was equivalent to the capitolio invasion in the USA. Then, several of them are denouncing this as "censorship", even if in the past the same laws were used by Bolsonaro and far right activists to remove content in the Internet, as when someone threatened the ex-president online. Musk joined them, and begun ignoring court orders, despite complying with equivalent court orders from other countries. After ignoring several court orders, Twitter had to withdraw from the country to do not face legal consequences. About VPN: As far as I know, there is no previous case in Brazil where VPN services were targeted. Apple do not have a huge market share in Brazil (just 16.54% for iOS), so it would be very strange trying to block something there. I do not think that blocking VPN makes any sense and I would wait for Apple pronouncement before suggesting "censorship" or something like this.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

The media is not exploring this conflict between Twitter/X and Brazil correctly. What’s happening is that one justice on their Supreme Court equivalent, Alexander de Moraes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_de_Moraes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_de_Moraes), has been abusing his position to illegally suppress political opposition. You can read about it in this thread: https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1775516415023251835 https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1775516415023251835 Note that Twitter is not refusing to comply with local laws. They’re saying that the orders from Moraes are not legal under Brazilian law, and therefore they are refusing to comply. Moraes is one justice. There is a due process there. You can’t just arbitrarily order bans on social media accounts or call for people of the opposing political camp to be arrested for illegal speech, even in Brazil. Moraes, for his part, claims he was given the power to unilaterally censor speech and arrest violators by the Superior Electoral Court (a different court from the one he is a sitting justice on). Which makes no sense, since the courts cannot make up laws, since they are not the legislature. By the way Musk isn’t the only one criticized Moraes. Even the New York Times wrote an article that labeled him as a threat to Brazilian democracy, as have various press organizations: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/world/americas/brazil-alexandre-de-moraes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/world/americas/brazil-ale... More disturbingly, their new leader Lula - who has a history of corruption and authoritarianism - has been calling for criminalizing lies, whatever that means: https://www.public.news/p/brazil-should-terrify-you https://www.public.news/p/brazil-should-terrify-you

matheusmoreira 2y ago

The situation has been brewing for around half a decade now. Basically the supreme court gave itself limitless powers to investigate and judge "fake news". Their powers have only expanded since then. Before the elections they started engaging in blatantly unconstitutional behavior like political censorship. They don't seem to be slowing down. These are great comments from fellow brazilian HNers, I always point to them whenever context is needed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36543423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36543423 I also submitted this bit of news here on HN back in 2022: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/world/americas/brazil-online-content-misinformation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/world/americas/brazil-onl...