7 ms·
SpaceX Pulls Employees from Brazil, Discourages Travel There
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago[flagged]
- chomp 2y agoYou linked to Elon’s alt account, not exactly an unbiased source. Fact of the matter remains that operating in places with less free speech means that you have to submit to their less free speech. Old Twitter knew this, and so do other social media companies. Running a successful business means you can’t be an ideologue all the time.
- kolanos 2y agoMy understanding is X followed Brazilian law by deleting the 7 offending posts, but the judge is now acting outside of the law and is demanding things of which there is no legal basis. And apparently this judge has a history of doing things like this in unrelated cases.
- Lendal 2y agoAs long as the order is upheld on appeal, you have to obey it. That's how courts work in the US too. It's the judge who decides. Judicial appointments matter.
- jltsiren 2y agoIf you do business in a country without a strong tradition of the rule of law, you have to accept that the law is not the supreme authority. Sometimes the authorities do what they want, and you have to deal with it if you want to continue doing business.
- jeffwask 2y agoGood to know this is one of his alts
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoThis is not Elon’s “alt account” but rather X’s official account. It isn’t even a secret, since it is literally marked as an official account of X (see the golden checkmark). So I am not sure what you’re alleging. Even if it was an alt account, why would it matter - there is no bias in sharing the literal secret orders given or sharing excerpts from Brazilian law.
- indoordin0saur 2y agoIs that just speculation? I'd believe it shares his viewpoint or is "biased", but how do you know it's an alt account?
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoA lot of people are so ready to hate on Musk, that they associate anything that X does as Musk’s decision, even though the company has its own CEO. This account is an official account of X, and is marked as such explicitly (see golden checkmark). It’s not some subversive alt account like the GP claimed.
- fredgrott 2y agoincorrect read the damn order....StarX has refuse a court order to block access to X...hence the court order freezing its Brazilian bank accounts.
- Pedro_Ribeiro 2y agoThe freezing happened BEFORE the block order, to my knowledge.
- cesarb 2y ago> The freezing happened BEFORE the block order, to my knowledge. I like going to original sources when possible, instead of depending on hearsay. You are correct. The order freezing the SpaceX assets is not public, but the rejection of their request to unblock these assets is (https://noticias.stf.jus.br/postsnoticias/stf-rejeita-acao-contra-bloqueio-de-contas-da-starlink/ https://noticias.stf.jus.br/postsnoticias/stf-rejeita-acao-c... direct link to the PDF: https://noticias-stf-wp-prd.s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/wpallimport/uploads/2024/08/30205930/Decisao_monocratica-MS39882.pdf https://noticias-stf-wp-prd.s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com/wp-co...), and it says that the order freezing the assets is from 24 August 2024; the order blocking Twitter (https://noticias.stf.jus.br/postsnoticias/stf-determina-suspensao-do-x-antigo-twitter-em-todo-o-territorio-nacional-2/ https://noticias.stf.jus.br/postsnoticias/stf-determina-susp... direct link to the PDFs: https://noticias-stf-wp-prd.s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/wpallimport/uploads/2024/08/30171714/PET-12404-Assinada.pdf https://noticias-stf-wp-prd.s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com/wp-co... and https://noticias-stf-wp-prd.s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/wpallimport/uploads/2024/08/30203157/suspensao-item-2.pdf https://noticias-stf-wp-prd.s3.sa-east-1.amazonaws.com/wp-co...) is from 30 August 2024, and it also says that the order freezing the assets is from 24 August 2024.
- leoff 2y agoHow does Musk plan on winning with these escalations? He's effectively blacklisting himself from the country.
- willcipriano 2y agoI don't think he plans much future business in Brazil. I suspect this a greater loss for them than he.
- gridder 2y ago[flagged]
- kolanos 2y agoNot sure how you arrive at that conclusion? This Brazilian judge has banned X in Brazil, barred Brazilians from accessing X using a VPN (with a $9k fine for violation), frozen the bank accounts of X's legal representative and threatened her with arrest. All without any discernible due process.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoEven setting aside free speech issues, the secret tribunal process and gag orders are unconstitutional per the 1988 constitution.
- TeaBrain 2y agoOut of curiosity, which part of the 1988 constitution makes it unconstitutional?
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoHere is a link to the constitution: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017 https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017 The biggest violation is of the freedom of expressions rights, which are in Article 5 Section 9: > [introduction] Everyone is equal before the law, with no distinction whatsoever, guaranteeing to Brazilians and foreigners residing in the Country the inviolability of the rights to life, liberty, equality, security and property, on the following terms: > expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific, and communication activity is free, independent of any censorship or license Posting on Twitter is a communication activity and it is therefore permitted without any censorship, explicitly. Look at Section 37: > there shall be no exceptional courts or tribunals In this case, the exceptional court is what Moraes implemented in 2022, basically as a secret court of one. He served on the Supreme Court but also as president of the electoral court. The proposal to give him unilateral censorship powers was proposed by him and approved by the electoral court, with the power being granted to him in the other court. It is a very convoluted legal maneuver to basically give himself powers that no executive or legislative authority gave him. Note that no laws are passed to perform this maneuver. And by issuing these orders in secret, as a Supreme Court justice, it makes the path to appeal difficult or impossible. It was shortly after this move that the New York Times (and many others) called Moraes a threat to democracy: 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... Also look at section 54: > no one shall be deprived of liberty or property without due process of law This one is obvious - a single judge issuing censorship orders with gag orders to prevent public visibility or challenge is a serious violation of due process. Or section 57: > no one shall be considered guilty until his criminal conviction has become final and non-appealable The reason I mentioned this section is some are saying that the censorship orders will eventually be reviewed by the full court bench (rather than being issued in secret by one justice), and that the orders are valid until then. But that’s equivalent to considering someone guilty without criminal conviction. There’s more than just these, if you look through the rest of it carefully. X’s official AlexandreFiles account (https://x.com/AlexandreFiles https://x.com/AlexandreFiles) is also posting the secret censorship orders they received along with side by side comparisons against Brazilian law.
- ripjaygn 2y agoDoesn't seem surprising, the judge froze the bank accounts of X's legal rep after she stopped working for X because of threats of arrest. X had to fire all their Brazil employees to protect them. Starlink assets got frozen so Starlink employees are fair game. The takedown request asked for IP addresses, does anyone know if non-Brazil IP addresses are also fair game? Feels weird that whatever country can just get US/EU person IP addresses as they wish from BlueSky, Threads etc.
- gcr 2y agowhy do X and SpaceX comingle assets and feuds like this? if I were a SpaceX shareholder, I'd be concerned about my CEO's misadventures with a separate company negatively impacting SpaceX's future plans for the South American spacefaring market (whether or not it currently exists).
- throw03172019 2y agoI believe SpaceX declined to block X on their Starlink internet service.
- wmf 2y agoNo, Starlink is blocking X. They're trying to take the high road.
- tomjakubowski 2y agothey reversed course on this one: > Elon Musk's satellite broadband firm, Starlink, on Tuesday said that it is complying with Brazil's top court order to block access to social media platform X in the country, a day after informing the country's regulator it would not obey the order.
- the_mitsuhiko 2y ago> if I were a SpaceX shareholder, I'd be concerned about my CEO's misadventures I think the actual answer is that if you invest into Musk companies you do it because of Musk. So you will do and okay whatever makes Musk happy because him being there is what makes the stock do the things the stock does (or anticipation of future stock/IPO performance).
- indoordin0saur 2y agoI invest in Tesla because I think it's a great product with a positive vision of the future. I do wish Musk was more measured but my opinion of him doesn't affect my opinion that electric cars are good, Tesla makes the best and has proven their ability to scale.
- encom 2y agoDo people just assume everyone has a subscription to WSJ?
- Lendal 2y agoMaybe they just assume everyone's reading this on an iPhone. I'm not, but if I wanted to I could access it via my phone which has Apple News which is how I access WSJ.
- skybrian 2y agoMaybe they assume you know how to use an archive site, or that someone will post a link eventually.
- devrand 2y agoLooks like WSJ finally implemented bot protection as archive.today just has a CAPTCHA archived.
- indoordin0saur 2y agoIs Brazil's supreme court very different from the US or is this judge overstepping his authority? I can't imagine some US judge unilaterally waging war against a collection of loosely affiliated businesses like this. Whether you think those Brazilians (some of whom are elected politicians in the opposing party) deserved to be banned from the internet or not the judge's tactics seem very frantic and shoot-from-the-hip.
- accidbuddy 2y agoThere are many differences, starting with the public image. As far as I know, in the US, the Supreme Court is seen as people with ethics and known legal knowledge. In Brazil, they are political appointees. Furthermore, for many, they go beyond the limits and sometimes legislate.
- ivewonyoung 2y agoThis judge got appointed the censorship czar without checks or balances. One of the first things he did after getting appointed was wrongly censor a Brazilian magazine's story about the guy that appointed him by calling it fake news. After other press found the story was true, he was forced to rescind that order. The damage was done. He also got the cops to raid some businessmen' homes at 6am because they were in a group chat where someone else joked about a coup. Source: NYTimes article: https://archive.is/plQFT https://archive.is/plQFT
- martythemaniak 2y agoThe ruling has been upheld by the wider court: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/02/brazils-supreme-court-upholds-x-ban-over-conduct https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/02/b...
- matheusmoreira 2y agoThe openly and proudly partisan supreme court? Made up of judges who openly support him in his censorship of the political opposition? Judges who go to public events and showboat about being the ones who defeated the brazilian right? Judges who proudly admit to being communists? It would have been strange if they hadn't upheld it.
- martythemaniak 2y agoThere's a lot of comments in here repeating Musk's "out of control judge" line. FYI: the original ruling has been upheld by the wider court: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/02/brazils-supreme-court-upholds-x-ban-over-conduct https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/02/b...
- indoordin0saur 2y agoWell they did chase out Twitter's legal representation by threatening to arrest them. So it doesn't exactly seem like a legitimate ruling. More like rubber stamping their bosses' excesses.
- vasco 2y agoThe thing to learn about Brazil if following news from the outside is that you need to wait 10-15 years to have any idea of what happened. Their current president was in jail for money laundering and other stuff for more than a year before. The law in Brazil is just another tool and its a wild west. I mean, like anywhere, but in Brazil they are more obvious about it compared to other places.
- raul-pilla 2y agoExactly. The root of the decision to suppress political dissent is at the core of the supreme court.
- ardrak 2y agoThere are some wild takes in the comments here that seem to imply it’s all just a whim of some random judge. But that’s not what happened at all, and I recommend that anyone interested in having a more informed opinion on the matter read about it somewhere other than on X (because of the obvious bias). A somewhat simplified timeline of events (in mt understanding of the events) is: The judge ordered the temporary ban of a few accounts during the investigation of the riots in the National Congress after the last election. The accounts were banned, but Musk ordered them to be unbanned. A fine was then stipulated for each day the accounts remained active. The fines kept accumulating, and Musk stated that X would neither pay the fees nor ban the accounts. The judge called the legal representative to give explanations. The order was again ignored. The judge threatened the legal representative with arrest. X closed all offices and dismissed all personnel in Brazil. The judge warned that having a legal representative in the country is a legal requirement and gave a few days for a new one to be appointed. No representative was appointed, and X was banned in the country. The judge argued that X and SpaceX are under the same monetary umbrella and blocked the accounts of SpaceX in Brazil to pay the fines. A supreme court committee voted and said the judge’s orders on blocking X were legal. There is still debate about whether SpaceX can be held accountable for X’s fines.
- cesarb 2y agoThe order of the events in your timeline is not fully correct, the "same monetary umbrella and blocked the accounts of SpaceX" part happened on 24 August, the "X was banned in the country" part happened on 30 August (and that 30 August order mentioned and gave the date for the earlier block of the SpaceX accounts).
- ardrak 2y agoI see, my mistake.
- indoordin0saur 2y agoI think it's important to keep in mind that the judicial system in Brazil is very political, much more so than in the US or Europe. The current Brazilian president was found to be leading a large ring of money laundering and embezzlement, stealing millions from the state oil company. Moraes was appointed by his allies and got him off the hook in very corrupt fashion. They even have threatened media companies for reporting on the scandal, as well as opposing politicians they see as a threat. Anyone interested in reading about the past of these guys currently running this censorship operation can see this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/01/brazil-operation-car-wash-is-this-the-biggest-corruption-scandal-in-history https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/01/brazil-operati...