11 ms·

All Elon needs to do is have a legal representative in Brazil for his commercial venture. He chose this.

yonaguska 2y ago
The courts threatened to arrest his legal representation if he didn't comply with their demands to take down accounts accused of spreading misinformation and hate speech. So Elon closed all offices in Brasil. You think he should risk having an employee thrown in jail?
- jeffbee 2y ago
  Defying a court order can get you arrested in any country.
  - crop_rotation 2y ago
    The orders of the brazilian court are just too arbitrary, and not just in this case. At some point it ceases to be a judicial court and becomes more of an Emperor's court where the Emperor is making laws as he is going on.
    - jrflowers 2y ago
      Defying court orders can get you arrested in any country even if you and others deem them to be “too arbitrary”
      - crop_rotation 2y ago
        That was not the point I was making. In any case your point applies to defying the monarch too, which might be more applicable here.
        jrflowers 2y ago
        This would be more applicable if Brazil had a monarch after 1889. Calling a judge that you don’t like a king does not make him one.
        crop_rotation 2y ago
        By this absurd logic calling the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" a dictatorship does not make it one.
        jrflowers 2y ago
        Kim Jong Un’s title is Supreme Leader, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea, President of the State Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Are you suggesting that he is also a member of the Brazilian supreme court?
        crop_rotation 2y ago
        > Are you suggesting that he is also a member of the Brazilian supreme court? I never suggested that. He is member of Korean institutions defined by Korean constitution, similarly how this judge is of a Brazilian Institution. Neither means there titles bear any similarity to what they are doing or what power they are exercising.
        jrflowers 2y ago
        Your reasoning is that if we look at the history of North Korea we will see that it has been a dictatorship since its inception, and similarly if we look at the history of Brazil we will plainly that it has not in fact ever been a republic and this is evidenced by the fact that Twitter is blocked? I do not understand the impulse to evoke a completely unrelated thing to try to make a conceptual argument against a fact that you do not even attempt to directly refute. Brazil does not have a monarch. If you believe that Brazil is a monarchy, I encourage you to expand on what you think a monarch is both in terms of power and historical context.
      - Wytwwww 2y ago
        Yes, and? Doesn't mean that anyone who could avoid it should feel compelled to accept that when this is done by an arbitrary and corrupt government. Also I'm not sure it's very common for courts to arrest lawyers (and basically use them as hostages) because of their clients actions in most countries.
        jrflowers 2y ago
        > Doesn't mean that anyone who could avoid it should feel compelled to accept that Courts can literally compel you to comply with court orders in virtually every country, unless of course as you have pointed out, you have the means to avoid being compelled. The “… when this is done by an arbitrary and corrupt government” sentiment has no real meaning here as you have pointed out that Musk can avoid being compelled either way.
        Wytwwww 2y ago
        Nobody has been talking about arresting Musk himself, rather employees or representatives of Twitter who are required to be present in Brazil just for this specific reason (i.e. so that they could be arrested and used as bargaining chips to force the foreign company to do whatever the government/("independent") judiciary wants. Also I really don't understand your overall point.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        jrflowers 2y ago
        My overall point is that there is little indication that this is some battle between good and evil or right and wrong. This is about a guy who faces no personal consequences whatsoever choosing to ignore court orders and a government penalizing his business for that choice. There is some speculation that maybe the judge is acting illegally but I haven’t seen anyone familiar with Brazilian constitutional law say that. There is also speculation that the judge is acting unethically, though the only “ethical” alternative offered is “let Elon Musk do whatever he wants”, which is less of an argument about ethics and more of a statement of what fandom a person subscribes to. If the judge is acting illegally I sure hope the citizens of Brazil address that. If he’s simply pissing off a rich libertarian that’s popular on his own website then I hope he continues to do so.
      - Natsu 2y ago
        Moraes is on the Brazilian STF, the highest court in the land. In other countries, this kind of stuff would go through multiple lower courts. Here, the head guy is just giving direct orders and answers to approximately no one. So it's the orders of one judge acting as judge, jury & executioner, which is not how we normally think of lawful process. Now that is the Brazilian system but... there's a damn good reason other people don't do it that way. And a damn good reason that dystopian book was named "Brazil."
        dalmo3 2y ago
        You mean the dystopian movie? Funnily enough the Brazilian constitution, which allows atrocities like this, was written years after the movie.
      - diegoholiveira 2y ago
        If a court orders you to shoot someone in the head, would you do it?
        jrflowers 2y ago
        If the tooth fairy asked Bob Ross to do a kick flip over Mordor does that mean that Long John Silver’s is open on Sunday? This question is an equally relevant response to someone pointing out an uncontested fact about how courts work.
        diegoholiveira 2y ago
        Is it?
        jrflowers 2y ago
        It looks like Long John Silver’s is open every day but Christmas and New Year’s Day.
    - TheAlchemist 2y ago
      That sounds like a pretty American way to see things. What's next - we send F-16 to bring democracy to Brasil ? Somehow, we came to normalize that US Tech companies, are above local laws. They pay virtually no taxes in countries they operate in. The brazilian court does seem pretty arbitrary, and not behaving at all as we would expect (we, as in the 'West'). Just don't do business there and it's fine.
  - saltyspaghetti 2y ago
    Isn’t this scenario the equivalent of arresting a lawyer due to the actions of their client? I can’t think of any country with a functioning legal system that does that
  - 4bpp 2y ago
    I'm sure that if Xwitter dispatched a "legal representative" to North Korea who has full moderation powers and will agree to be subjected to anything that a North Korean court orders, even an unblocking of it in NK could be negotiated. Does that mean that it is Musk's fault that his site remains blocked in that country, too? Conversely, is it actually normal for countries to personally punish legal representatives for actions that their employer performed, even if they did not have the power to prevent those actions?
- mikeyouse 2y ago
  It feels fairly arbitrary from the outside because they complied with similarly gross takedown demands in Turkey and India; https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-censorship-elon-musk-throttled-tweets-turkey-presidential-election-2023-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-censorship-elon-... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/05/twitter-accused-of-censorship-in-india-as-it-blocks-modi-critics-elon-musk https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/05/twitter-accuse...
  - polygamous_bat 2y ago
    The missing context here is that the "misinformation accounts" that X was supposed to remove here are spreading the right wing propaganda saying the election was stolen from far-right sweetheart Jair Bolsonaro. On the other hand, the requests in India and Turkey are coming from, you guessed it, far right sweetheart Modi and Erdogan governments. If you think Elon is doing this to defend "freedom of speech" I have a beautiful bridge to sell you.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  I think he should not commit crimes, if he does, yes, he need to have a legal representative. That's how the rule of the law works.
rafaquintanilha 2y ago
Because the Supreme Court arbitrarily threatened the legal representatives, and Elon didn't comply. There is no legal process whatsoever, nor the regular mediums have been used. It's all arbitrary without the due process. Even a legalist would need to concede that the law hasn't been followed in the first place.
- meiraleal 2y ago
  > There is no legal process whatsoever, nor the regular mediums have been used That's simply false. The proper legal processes are being followed. It's just a narrative pushed by those who refuse to accept that their actions are/were illegal and have consequences.
  - IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
    A thorough explanation of the applicable law, point by point, that demonstrates that what you are saying is complete fantasy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382
    - meiraleal 2y ago
      Alright, let's see. First item: > In Brazil, a judge cannot open an inquiry. False allegation, the inquiry was asked by the Federal Police and the judge accepted it. If it starts with a wrong premise we can already know what's coming next.
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
  As you said - Moraes didn't threaten. Moraes executed. The prior legal representative of X had all her personal bank accounts frozen.
bestatsiege_01 2y ago
According to X the Brazilian Court threatened the legal rep with imprisonment, then after they quit the court froze the bank accounts of said rep anyway. If that is true it strongly biases me towards believing X is in the right. Those are astonishingly authoritarian actions. https://twitter.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1829296715989414281 https://twitter.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1829296715989414281
- NomDePlum 2y ago
  Appears to be at odds with what's reported in the linked article. The Guardian is a reputable, independent source. X is neither of those.
  - bestatsiege_01 2y ago
    Where/How does The Guardian article conflict with X's statement?
    - NomDePlum 2y ago
      It lays out the reasons for the dispute in several paragraphs, there is no mention of what was claimed, but reasonable representation of both sides position: "The Brazilian supreme court has ordered that X be suspended in the country after the social media platform failed to meet a deadline to appoint a legal representative in the country." "The dispute began in April, when Moraes ordered the suspension of dozens of accounts for allegedly spreading disinformation – a request Musk denounced as censorship." X, formerly known as Twitter, has been without a legal representative in Brazil since 17 August, when Musk announced that his company was shutting down its operations in the country “effective immediately” due to what it called “censorship orders” from Moraes. The service has remained available to users in the country."" "Moraes’ April order to X to block some accounts stemmed from an investigation into “digital militias” who backed former president Jair Bolsonaro’s attempts to stay in power after his 2022 election defeat. After Musk refused to comply, the judge included him in his investigation." "On Wednesday, Moraes gave the company 24 hours to appoint a new legal representative in Brazil – a requirement for foreign companies operating in the country – “under penalty of immediate suspension of the social network’s activities”."
robertlagrant 2y ago
I don't really understand the pro-authoritarian stance.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  People hate Musk so much that they would rejoice at the Devil doing him harm. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a widespread fallacy. Attitudes like that gave us alliance with Stalin once, and subsequent 40 years of a Cold War.
- hungie 2y ago
  I don't know what content was requested to be removed. If the opposition was spreading lies about elections being stolen, that seems like reasonable content to moderate. Not all moderation is bad, and different places have different tolerances for it. I keep seeing people say "silencing the opposition" but not actually providing what that means in practice. Could be authoritarian, could be not. Given musk's history as a right wing agitator, I want to see data before coming to any conclusions here.
  - Georgelemental 2y ago
    > that seems like reasonable content to moderate Why should the government be the one to make that decision? If anyone has a conflict of interest, it's them, no?
    - hungie 2y ago
      I mean, Germany bans nazi imagery in media. Many countries ban false advertising. A number consider it not ok to discriminate against people based on their characteristics. Fringe health statements are often disallowed. TikTok just got hit with a speech case about a girl hanging herself to death because of a video. Government moderates speech all the time, and yes, there's obviously grey areas and opportunities for abuse with those systems. I want to see the examples. Not someone grinding an axe with "the opposition"... show me what was not allowed.

The courts threatened to arrest his legal representation if he didn't comply with their demands to take down accounts accused of spreading misinformation and hate speech. So Elon closed all offices in Brasil. You think he should risk having an employee thrown in jail?

jeffbee 2y ago
Defying a court order can get you arrested in any country.
- crop_rotation 2y ago
  The orders of the brazilian court are just too arbitrary, and not just in this case. At some point it ceases to be a judicial court and becomes more of an Emperor's court where the Emperor is making laws as he is going on.
  - jrflowers 2y ago
    Defying court orders can get you arrested in any country even if you and others deem them to be “too arbitrary”
    - crop_rotation 2y ago
      That was not the point I was making. In any case your point applies to defying the monarch too, which might be more applicable here.
      - jrflowers 2y ago
        This would be more applicable if Brazil had a monarch after 1889. Calling a judge that you don’t like a king does not make him one.
        crop_rotation 2y ago
        By this absurd logic calling the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" a dictatorship does not make it one.
        jrflowers 2y ago
        Kim Jong Un’s title is Supreme Leader, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea, President of the State Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Are you suggesting that he is also a member of the Brazilian supreme court?
        crop_rotation 2y ago
        > Are you suggesting that he is also a member of the Brazilian supreme court? I never suggested that. He is member of Korean institutions defined by Korean constitution, similarly how this judge is of a Brazilian Institution. Neither means there titles bear any similarity to what they are doing or what power they are exercising.
        jrflowers 2y ago
        Your reasoning is that if we look at the history of North Korea we will see that it has been a dictatorship since its inception, and similarly if we look at the history of Brazil we will plainly that it has not in fact ever been a republic and this is evidenced by the fact that Twitter is blocked? I do not understand the impulse to evoke a completely unrelated thing to try to make a conceptual argument against a fact that you do not even attempt to directly refute. Brazil does not have a monarch. If you believe that Brazil is a monarchy, I encourage you to expand on what you think a monarch is both in terms of power and historical context.
    - Wytwwww 2y ago
      Yes, and? Doesn't mean that anyone who could avoid it should feel compelled to accept that when this is done by an arbitrary and corrupt government. Also I'm not sure it's very common for courts to arrest lawyers (and basically use them as hostages) because of their clients actions in most countries.
      - jrflowers 2y ago
        > Doesn't mean that anyone who could avoid it should feel compelled to accept that Courts can literally compel you to comply with court orders in virtually every country, unless of course as you have pointed out, you have the means to avoid being compelled. The “… when this is done by an arbitrary and corrupt government” sentiment has no real meaning here as you have pointed out that Musk can avoid being compelled either way.
        Wytwwww 2y ago
        Nobody has been talking about arresting Musk himself, rather employees or representatives of Twitter who are required to be present in Brazil just for this specific reason (i.e. so that they could be arrested and used as bargaining chips to force the foreign company to do whatever the government/("independent") judiciary wants. Also I really don't understand your overall point.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        jrflowers 2y ago
        My overall point is that there is little indication that this is some battle between good and evil or right and wrong. This is about a guy who faces no personal consequences whatsoever choosing to ignore court orders and a government penalizing his business for that choice. There is some speculation that maybe the judge is acting illegally but I haven’t seen anyone familiar with Brazilian constitutional law say that. There is also speculation that the judge is acting unethically, though the only “ethical” alternative offered is “let Elon Musk do whatever he wants”, which is less of an argument about ethics and more of a statement of what fandom a person subscribes to. If the judge is acting illegally I sure hope the citizens of Brazil address that. If he’s simply pissing off a rich libertarian that’s popular on his own website then I hope he continues to do so.
    - Natsu 2y ago
      Moraes is on the Brazilian STF, the highest court in the land. In other countries, this kind of stuff would go through multiple lower courts. Here, the head guy is just giving direct orders and answers to approximately no one. So it's the orders of one judge acting as judge, jury & executioner, which is not how we normally think of lawful process. Now that is the Brazilian system but... there's a damn good reason other people don't do it that way. And a damn good reason that dystopian book was named "Brazil."
      - dalmo3 2y ago
        You mean the dystopian movie? Funnily enough the Brazilian constitution, which allows atrocities like this, was written years after the movie.
    - diegoholiveira 2y ago
      If a court orders you to shoot someone in the head, would you do it?
      - jrflowers 2y ago
        If the tooth fairy asked Bob Ross to do a kick flip over Mordor does that mean that Long John Silver’s is open on Sunday? This question is an equally relevant response to someone pointing out an uncontested fact about how courts work.
        diegoholiveira 2y ago
        Is it?
        jrflowers 2y ago
        It looks like Long John Silver’s is open every day but Christmas and New Year’s Day.
  - TheAlchemist 2y ago
    That sounds like a pretty American way to see things. What's next - we send F-16 to bring democracy to Brasil ? Somehow, we came to normalize that US Tech companies, are above local laws. They pay virtually no taxes in countries they operate in. The brazilian court does seem pretty arbitrary, and not behaving at all as we would expect (we, as in the 'West'). Just don't do business there and it's fine.
- saltyspaghetti 2y ago
  Isn’t this scenario the equivalent of arresting a lawyer due to the actions of their client? I can’t think of any country with a functioning legal system that does that
- 4bpp 2y ago
  I'm sure that if Xwitter dispatched a "legal representative" to North Korea who has full moderation powers and will agree to be subjected to anything that a North Korean court orders, even an unblocking of it in NK could be negotiated. Does that mean that it is Musk's fault that his site remains blocked in that country, too? Conversely, is it actually normal for countries to personally punish legal representatives for actions that their employer performed, even if they did not have the power to prevent those actions?
mikeyouse 2y ago
It feels fairly arbitrary from the outside because they complied with similarly gross takedown demands in Turkey and India; https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-censorship-elon-musk-throttled-tweets-turkey-presidential-election-2023-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-censorship-elon-... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/05/twitter-accused-of-censorship-in-india-as-it-blocks-modi-critics-elon-musk https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/05/twitter-accuse...
- polygamous_bat 2y ago
  The missing context here is that the "misinformation accounts" that X was supposed to remove here are spreading the right wing propaganda saying the election was stolen from far-right sweetheart Jair Bolsonaro. On the other hand, the requests in India and Turkey are coming from, you guessed it, far right sweetheart Modi and Erdogan governments. If you think Elon is doing this to defend "freedom of speech" I have a beautiful bridge to sell you.
meiraleal 2y ago
I think he should not commit crimes, if he does, yes, he need to have a legal representative. That's how the rule of the law works.

rafaquintanilha 2y ago

Because the Supreme Court arbitrarily threatened the legal representatives, and Elon didn't comply. There is no legal process whatsoever, nor the regular mediums have been used. It's all arbitrary without the due process. Even a legalist would need to concede that the law hasn't been followed in the first place.

meiraleal 2y ago
> There is no legal process whatsoever, nor the regular mediums have been used That's simply false. The proper legal processes are being followed. It's just a narrative pushed by those who refuse to accept that their actions are/were illegal and have consequences.
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
  A thorough explanation of the applicable law, point by point, that demonstrates that what you are saying is complete fantasy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382
  - meiraleal 2y ago
    Alright, let's see. First item: > In Brazil, a judge cannot open an inquiry. False allegation, the inquiry was asked by the Federal Police and the judge accepted it. If it starts with a wrong premise we can already know what's coming next.
IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
As you said - Moraes didn't threaten. Moraes executed. The prior legal representative of X had all her personal bank accounts frozen.

bestatsiege_01 2y ago

According to X the Brazilian Court threatened the legal rep with imprisonment, then after they quit the court froze the bank accounts of said rep anyway. If that is true it strongly biases me towards believing X is in the right. Those are astonishingly authoritarian actions. https://twitter.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1829296715989414281 https://twitter.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1829296715989414281

NomDePlum 2y ago
Appears to be at odds with what's reported in the linked article. The Guardian is a reputable, independent source. X is neither of those.
- bestatsiege_01 2y ago
  Where/How does The Guardian article conflict with X's statement?
  - NomDePlum 2y ago
    It lays out the reasons for the dispute in several paragraphs, there is no mention of what was claimed, but reasonable representation of both sides position: "The Brazilian supreme court has ordered that X be suspended in the country after the social media platform failed to meet a deadline to appoint a legal representative in the country." "The dispute began in April, when Moraes ordered the suspension of dozens of accounts for allegedly spreading disinformation – a request Musk denounced as censorship." X, formerly known as Twitter, has been without a legal representative in Brazil since 17 August, when Musk announced that his company was shutting down its operations in the country “effective immediately” due to what it called “censorship orders” from Moraes. The service has remained available to users in the country."" "Moraes’ April order to X to block some accounts stemmed from an investigation into “digital militias” who backed former president Jair Bolsonaro’s attempts to stay in power after his 2022 election defeat. After Musk refused to comply, the judge included him in his investigation." "On Wednesday, Moraes gave the company 24 hours to appoint a new legal representative in Brazil – a requirement for foreign companies operating in the country – “under penalty of immediate suspension of the social network’s activities”."

robertlagrant 2y ago

I don't really understand the pro-authoritarian stance.

inglor_cz 2y ago
People hate Musk so much that they would rejoice at the Devil doing him harm. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a widespread fallacy. Attitudes like that gave us alliance with Stalin once, and subsequent 40 years of a Cold War.
hungie 2y ago
I don't know what content was requested to be removed. If the opposition was spreading lies about elections being stolen, that seems like reasonable content to moderate. Not all moderation is bad, and different places have different tolerances for it. I keep seeing people say "silencing the opposition" but not actually providing what that means in practice. Could be authoritarian, could be not. Given musk's history as a right wing agitator, I want to see data before coming to any conclusions here.
- Georgelemental 2y ago
  > that seems like reasonable content to moderate Why should the government be the one to make that decision? If anyone has a conflict of interest, it's them, no?
  - hungie 2y ago
    I mean, Germany bans nazi imagery in media. Many countries ban false advertising. A number consider it not ok to discriminate against people based on their characteristics. Fringe health statements are often disallowed. TikTok just got hit with a speech case about a girl hanging herself to death because of a video. Government moderates speech all the time, and yes, there's obviously grey areas and opportunities for abuse with those systems. I want to see the examples. Not someone grinding an axe with "the opposition"... show me what was not allowed.