6 ms·

X working again in Brazil as Elon Musk finds way around ban (using Cloudflare)

15 points by trollied 2y ago

meepmorp 2y ago
Can't wait to see the blast radius if the judge decides to block CloudFlare
- Qem 2y ago
  Probably easier to impound some CloudFlare assets, if any available. But any blocking would follow an escalation process. X itself was only blocked as an remedy of last resort, after months refusing to abide by court decision, refusing to pay fines and firing all employees and self-nuking its own local presence to avoid compliance at all costs. It was even reported[1] X refused to honor severance pay to the employees fired. [1] https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/economia/2024/09/6934917-ex-funcionario-do-x-diz-que-equipe-nao-recebeu-fgts-apos-fechamento-do-escritorio.html https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/economia/2024/09/69349... (Portuguese)
  - aksss 2y ago
    Wasn't the court threatening to start penalizing the local X ee's as the only local target they had for enforcement actions? "The social media giant published pictures of a document allegedly signed by Moraes which says a daily fine of 20,000 reais ($3,653) and an arrest decree would be imposed against X representative Rachel Nova Conceicao if the platform did not fully comply to Moraes' orders. 'To protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately,' X said." https://www.reuters.com/technology/x-close-operations-brazil-effective-immediately-2024-08-17/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/x-close-operations-brazil...
- viraptor 2y ago
  They have other options in practice. If they have the means to block Cloudflare, they also have the means to prevent Twitter domains from resolving. (DoH can be blocked too without a big outage)
  - tmottabr 2y ago
    They don't need any of that.. They just need to send a court order to Cloudflare to have then block Twitter.. That is pretty much what already happened and Cloudflare already replied informing they will isolate Twitter IP range from the rest of the customers.. By this time tomorrow it will be blocked again..
    - viraptor 2y ago
      Cloudflare is notorious for protecting criminals using their service. We'll see what happens in practice, but if they simply comply without any resistance, I'd be surprised.
      - tmottabr 2y ago
        not only they did not offered any resistance.. but they were the ones that reached out and offered to comply without even requiring a specific court order.. when i posted they had already announced they would comply to the block, i wa referring to that.. that they isolated twitter traffic to 2 specific ip address that can easily be blocked.. the block is already in place for the big ISPs and the rest should have it blocked by the end of day..
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago
  My understanding is that Brazil's government uses CloudFlare because its sites kept falling to DDOS attacks it couldn't block. If that's accurate, blocking CloudFlare would open the government to DDOS attacks again.
  - meepmorp 2y ago
    Like I said, I can't wait to see the blast radius.
taylodl 2y ago
[flagged]
- ElonChrist 2y ago
  [dead]
- troad 2y ago
  > I know people are cheering Musk's breaking the law. They'll continue cheering until he's breaking their laws. The billions of people living under authoritarian regimes will be cheering doubly hard at that point. I don't know enough about the Brazil situation to know who's in the right on that one (other than that I assume that Twitter is in continuing compliance with US law?), but it's a virtual certainty that Twitter is not complying with - say - Iranian law, and that's a huge win for the people of Iran. This stuff is more nuanced than "I think that Musk is [good / bad], therefore I [support / oppose] everything he touches". I'm no fan of Musk, but I won't suddenly turn on basic democratic values and norms because I feel compelled to signal that I think the Twitter man is icky.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    > The billions of people living under authoritarian regimes will be cheering doubly hard at that point Musk picks and chooses which regimes he supports.
- PauloManrique 2y ago
  > I know people are cheering Musk's breaking the law He's not breaking the law, the judge is. There are no laws in Brazil that back his decisions.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    The case went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court backed the judge's decision. Also, Brazil's Congress can remove the judge from the bench, and they have not. Given that state of affairs, how do you claim the judge is breaking the law?
pestatije 2y ago
Being an alien he could be extradited if the judge deems so
- aksss 2y ago
  I believe Musk is a naturalized citizen of the U.S. The legal status of alien refers to one who has not gone through the naturalization process, IIRC. I'm sure Brazil could attempt to have anyone extradited, regardless of citizenship status. Whether the US would honor that request or be in any way obligated to is beyond my understanding of the law.
Rzor 2y ago
Why didn't Musk attempt the same when India and Turkey did their version of it? Is Brazil worse than them? >In India, which is immersed in an autocratic drift that for months has been choking the media, journalists and critical voices, Twitter has also seconded government bans. To justify the consent, Musk said: “The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can’t go beyond the laws of a country,” and in doing so put his staff at risk, he added. “If we have a choice of either our people going to prison or us complying with the laws, we will comply with the laws.” This justification came after Twitter removed content related to a BBC documentary that was highly critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which was blocked in January by the Indian government. https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-24/under-elon-musk-twitter-has-approved-83-of-censorship-requests-by-authoritarian-governments.html https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-24/under-el...
- PauloManrique 2y ago
  Because those countries have laws that back their decisions. We don't. We are a democracy, we have laws - and there are no laws that allows the decisions this judge is taking. Elon is not questioning our laws, or India or Turkey. He is questioning that the judge is not following our laws and he's right.
  - Qem 2y ago
    Brazilian Marco Civil da Internet[1], the local Internet law, stipulates providers must provide records if presented a court order (Art. 10, § 1º). It also says (Art. 12) failure to comply may lead to the following sanctions, in that order: I - formal warning, II - fines up to controlling group 10% total revenue, III - temporary suspension and IV - activity shutdown at last. So in fact there is proper legal coverage. [1]. https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2011-2014/2014/lei/l12965.htm https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2011-2014/2014/lei...
    - PauloManrique 2y ago
      This part of the Marco Civil talks about logs, and that's not what the judge is requesting. The judge is requesting that social network profiles to be taken down, without telling the person that got the profile taken down the reason - which removes their ability to defend theirselves in the court.

15 points by trollied 2y ago

meepmorp 2y ago

Can't wait to see the blast radius if the judge decides to block CloudFlare

Qem 2y ago
Probably easier to impound some CloudFlare assets, if any available. But any blocking would follow an escalation process. X itself was only blocked as an remedy of last resort, after months refusing to abide by court decision, refusing to pay fines and firing all employees and self-nuking its own local presence to avoid compliance at all costs. It was even reported[1] X refused to honor severance pay to the employees fired. [1] https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/economia/2024/09/6934917-ex-funcionario-do-x-diz-que-equipe-nao-recebeu-fgts-apos-fechamento-do-escritorio.html https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/economia/2024/09/69349... (Portuguese)
- aksss 2y ago
  Wasn't the court threatening to start penalizing the local X ee's as the only local target they had for enforcement actions? "The social media giant published pictures of a document allegedly signed by Moraes which says a daily fine of 20,000 reais ($3,653) and an arrest decree would be imposed against X representative Rachel Nova Conceicao if the platform did not fully comply to Moraes' orders. 'To protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately,' X said." https://www.reuters.com/technology/x-close-operations-brazil-effective-immediately-2024-08-17/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/x-close-operations-brazil...
viraptor 2y ago
They have other options in practice. If they have the means to block Cloudflare, they also have the means to prevent Twitter domains from resolving. (DoH can be blocked too without a big outage)
- tmottabr 2y ago
  They don't need any of that.. They just need to send a court order to Cloudflare to have then block Twitter.. That is pretty much what already happened and Cloudflare already replied informing they will isolate Twitter IP range from the rest of the customers.. By this time tomorrow it will be blocked again..
  - viraptor 2y ago
    Cloudflare is notorious for protecting criminals using their service. We'll see what happens in practice, but if they simply comply without any resistance, I'd be surprised.
    - tmottabr 2y ago
      not only they did not offered any resistance.. but they were the ones that reached out and offered to comply without even requiring a specific court order.. when i posted they had already announced they would comply to the block, i wa referring to that.. that they isolated twitter traffic to 2 specific ip address that can easily be blocked.. the block is already in place for the big ISPs and the rest should have it blocked by the end of day..
Mountain_Skies 2y ago
My understanding is that Brazil's government uses CloudFlare because its sites kept falling to DDOS attacks it couldn't block. If that's accurate, blocking CloudFlare would open the government to DDOS attacks again.
- meepmorp 2y ago
  Like I said, I can't wait to see the blast radius.

taylodl 2y ago

[flagged]

ElonChrist 2y ago
[dead]
troad 2y ago
> I know people are cheering Musk's breaking the law. They'll continue cheering until he's breaking their laws. The billions of people living under authoritarian regimes will be cheering doubly hard at that point. I don't know enough about the Brazil situation to know who's in the right on that one (other than that I assume that Twitter is in continuing compliance with US law?), but it's a virtual certainty that Twitter is not complying with - say - Iranian law, and that's a huge win for the people of Iran. This stuff is more nuanced than "I think that Musk is [good / bad], therefore I [support / oppose] everything he touches". I'm no fan of Musk, but I won't suddenly turn on basic democratic values and norms because I feel compelled to signal that I think the Twitter man is icky.
- taylodl 2y ago
  > The billions of people living under authoritarian regimes will be cheering doubly hard at that point Musk picks and chooses which regimes he supports.
PauloManrique 2y ago
> I know people are cheering Musk's breaking the law He's not breaking the law, the judge is. There are no laws in Brazil that back his decisions.
- taylodl 2y ago
  The case went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court backed the judge's decision. Also, Brazil's Congress can remove the judge from the bench, and they have not. Given that state of affairs, how do you claim the judge is breaking the law?

pestatije 2y ago

Being an alien he could be extradited if the judge deems so

aksss 2y ago
I believe Musk is a naturalized citizen of the U.S. The legal status of alien refers to one who has not gone through the naturalization process, IIRC. I'm sure Brazil could attempt to have anyone extradited, regardless of citizenship status. Whether the US would honor that request or be in any way obligated to is beyond my understanding of the law.

Rzor 2y ago

Why didn't Musk attempt the same when India and Turkey did their version of it? Is Brazil worse than them? >In India, which is immersed in an autocratic drift that for months has been choking the media, journalists and critical voices, Twitter has also seconded government bans. To justify the consent, Musk said: “The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can’t go beyond the laws of a country,” and in doing so put his staff at risk, he added. “If we have a choice of either our people going to prison or us complying with the laws, we will comply with the laws.” This justification came after Twitter removed content related to a BBC documentary that was highly critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which was blocked in January by the Indian government. https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-24/under-elon-musk-twitter-has-approved-83-of-censorship-requests-by-authoritarian-governments.html https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-24/under-el...

PauloManrique 2y ago
Because those countries have laws that back their decisions. We don't. We are a democracy, we have laws - and there are no laws that allows the decisions this judge is taking. Elon is not questioning our laws, or India or Turkey. He is questioning that the judge is not following our laws and he's right.
- Qem 2y ago
  Brazilian Marco Civil da Internet[1], the local Internet law, stipulates providers must provide records if presented a court order (Art. 10, § 1º). It also says (Art. 12) failure to comply may lead to the following sanctions, in that order: I - formal warning, II - fines up to controlling group 10% total revenue, III - temporary suspension and IV - activity shutdown at last. So in fact there is proper legal coverage. [1]. https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2011-2014/2014/lei/l12965.htm https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2011-2014/2014/lei...
  - PauloManrique 2y ago
    This part of the Marco Civil talks about logs, and that's not what the judge is requesting. The judge is requesting that social network profiles to be taken down, without telling the person that got the profile taken down the reason - which removes their ability to defend theirselves in the court.