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Brazil’s supreme court upholds ban on Elon Musk’s X over ‘illegal conduct’

Members of Brazil’s supreme court have unanimously voted to uphold the ban on X, after Elon Musk’s refusal to comply with local laws led to the social network being blocked in one of its biggest markets.

On Monday, five of the court’s justices were asked to consider Friday’s decision to temporarily banish X from Brazil, where the platform has more than 21 million users. By lunchtime all five had voted in favour of the ban.

Casting his vote in favour of X’s continued suspension, Flávio Dino said the company’s decision to “deliberately” ignore a court order to name a legal representative in Brazil suggested it “considered itself above the rule of law”.

splonglo ,

The really funny thing here is that Elon’s Twitter has openly complied with censorship orders from Hungary already. The free speech stuff is fake. Twitter does overt political censorship on request.

dsilverz ,
@dsilverz@thelemmy.club avatar

There is absolutely no saint in this whole story. Musk is a billionaire trying to play god, while the supreme court is also trying to play god. Both consider themselves “above the rule of law”, while an entire population (composed of 200 million people) is divided between “Musk is right, let’s impeach Moraes” and “Moraes is right, let’s jail Musk”. There’s no good or evil here, for me, it’s the grand-old classic Divide et impera. It’s so obvious!

The good side of all this is that people are slowly learning about decentralized platforms, getting a little closer to tech-savvy. People are discovering fediverse, even if it’s through a not-so-good fediverse instance (Threads from Meta, or Bluesky). When people really literate themselves about the decentralization, it’ll be harder for both state bureaucracies as well as for corporations. The mastodon in the room which neither corps nor govs want to talk about (pun intented).

lorty ,
@lorty@lemmy.ml avatar

Musk literally refused to comply to the supreme court of Brazil. How the heck are they in the wrong for blocking X?

dsilverz , (edited )
@dsilverz@thelemmy.club avatar

Imagine people that work using X as their sustenance platform. Just imagine it. Oh, no one cares about them, neither government, nor corporations, nor minions from both sides… Because Hobbes was right. Men is a wolf to men.

tortina_original ,

Oh dear, “both sides are the same”, amirite?

dsilverz ,
@dsilverz@thelemmy.club avatar

Nailed it. Prove me wrong.

Sundial ,

Even if it somehow gets reinstated, the damage is done. Majority have already left for alternatives.

Lost_My_Mind ,

The funny thing is, the right in America are trying to push laws that make the company responisible for user posted content.

If that happens, and I go to twitter and post something illegal, I’M still liable for breaking the laws, but now so is twitter.

So eventually, if he tries to be above the law in America, SOMEBODY is going to post child porn. Then, by their own laws, twitter is liable for that illegal action.

This is going to lead to one of two things. Either

  1. Twitter shuts down

Or

  1. Musk goes to jail.

Aw hell…who am I kidding? It’s going to be “Well, he’s one of us. It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it”.

He’ll pay a 2 million dollar fine, which is peanuts to him, and this shitty world will keep on going.

Monomate , (edited )

Are we seeing the same thing? I’ve never seen as much activity from Brazilian users on X as now.

I guess all this block did was teach the Brazilian population how to use VPNs. And most are just ignoring the threat of a US$ 8.900,00 daily fine from the dictator because, by its very nature, VPNs keep them anonymous. X is on bad terms with the dictator, so it will not expose anyone’s IP addresses even if requested by him. None of the major VPN companies are based in Brazil, and it would be hard to ask them for IP addresses too.

Even some major news outlets are still posting on X, saying that they’re posting through “international staff members.” Some politicians and notable personalities are starting to use the same excuse: “someone out of the country is posting for me.” This block is looking pretty ineffective, and it’s serving as an educational incentive for people to start using VPNs. If any more social media platforms are also blocked, people are already well prepared to circumvent the blocks.

So, what has the dictator gained from this temper tantrum? He forced X out of the country, leaving no local offices to receive his orders, even the reasonable ones like those related to normal (non-political persecution) crimes. And he strengthened the protests that were already scheduled for September 7th (Brazil Independence Day), which will turn into an event mainly asking for his impeachment.

ShinkanTrain , (edited )

I guess all this block did was teach the Brazilian population how to use VPNs.

ISPs have a period to comply with the order. Mine still hasn’t blocked the shitshow.

Monomate ,

ISPs shall block, X users shall use VPN to circumvent.

ShinkanTrain ,

I doubt the average twitter user gives a semblance of a shit.

Monomate ,

When a X user finds himself unable to load X’s main page or the app, he will be motivated to investagate why, and finally he’ll find out VPNs are the solution. X’s brazilian users were already discussing and suggesting VPNs to each other on the days leading up to the block. And the block is not 100% yet: smaller ISPs are taking longer to set up the block.

deus ,

Yeah, I doubt most people will go this route. VPNs cost money, Twitter alternatives are free.

Monomate , (edited )

Free VPNs don’t cost money. And times have changed: there are some reputable free VPNs, like ProtonVPN and Cloudflare’s WARP.

Zron ,

You mean: when an X user finds themselves unable to load the main page, they’ll get frustrated, uninstall the app and leave a review about how it’s broken.

You grossly overestimate the tech savvyness of your average internet user, and their willingness to spend any amount of time or money to fix a minor inconvenience.

Monomate ,

If the solution is as simple as downloading a VPN app from the smartphone app store and clicking “activate VPN,” I wouldn’t consider it tech-savvy territory. In the past, VPNs were indeed esoteric tech for nerds, but nowadays they’re commoditized stuff. And if Brazil’s regime keeps getting more repressive under the dictator, with the blocking of more social media sites, more people will have the opportunity/necessity to learn about VPNs.

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Twitter users aren’t smart enough to figure out how to use VPNs

Rentlar , (edited )

Refusal to comply with local laws suggests social media company ‘considered itself above the rule of law’

Seems like a correct observation to me.

RamblingPanda ,

Either that or they think the market isn’t worth the effort. Which is fine. I hope other countries follow. Then do the same with meta.

ShinkanTrain ,

It’s almost as if companies are used to do whatever the fuck they want and the moment there’s pushback you have pissing, screaming and gnashing of teeth.

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