The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he hopes the crisis surrounding the social network X in Brazil might teach the world that “it isn’t obliged to put up with [Elon] Musk’s far-right free-for-all just because he is rich”.
Lula’s comments to the network CNN Brasil came after the supreme court voted unanimously on Monday to uphold the ban on X, which is now largely inaccessible in one of its biggest global markets.
The suspension was first ordered on Friday as a result of the company’s refusal to obey court orders requiring the removal of profiles accused of spreading disinformation and for the social network to name a local legal representative.
This is why it’s important to have decentralized social media. We cannot have anyone unilaterally deciding what gets talked about and what doesn’t.
Ordinarily, I might agree. However, this suspension is because musk refused to appoint a legal representative for the company in Brazil, IAW Brazilian law. That’s a reasonable ask for a company that’s actively doing business in the country. If a billionaire* crybaby refuses to follow the law, then he gets to deal with the consequences. FA meet FO.
That’s not what the article says, the article says it’s because X refused to ban users and because of that. Not just because of that
You should read up on the whole ordeal. The article is failing to summarize the lengthy legal battle that’s been happening between them for years since Musk’s takeover.
Well, from what I understand when X appoints a legal representative they will then be held responsible for refusing to ban. Is that wrong?
Can you provide a quick summary?
Your right to free speech ends when it turns into terrorism, racism or a call for a coup.
There are some things that should be banned, such as the twitter accounts that promoted the attempt at a coup in Brazil in Jan 8 2023.
These are the accounts that the judge asked to be banned. After Twitter didn’t comply they started sending fines and eventually outright banning it.
Free speech doesn’t mean you can say literally anything. It means the government cannot punish you for your political views. But they can, and must punish racism and anti-democracy speech.
Also, it’s a misconception that a decentralized service cannot be banned. In fact it’s not hard at all
Could someone expand upon this? I’m don’t know much about tech, but the idea that FOSS decentralized platforms can’t be banned does seem to make sense right? Ban one, another one will pop up, etc. What am I not getting here?
I’ll admit I don’t know how Lemmy works in communicating to each other. However, Internet traffic is labeled in some manner. It has to be to ensure data traverses the web of routers we call the Internet. Lemmy instances have to identify each other to share their information to each other.
Just ban whatever traffic Lemmy instances are looking for.
Yes, if banning protocols is acceptable for you.
You mean possible right?
If it’s acceptable, then a wildcard ban of undetected protocols and the “bad” ones from among the detected is possible. China-style.
That is, everything is possible.
Removed by mod
If what these accounts said was so dangerous then why didn’t the government go after the operators of the accounts and arrest them? Instead they tried to silence them by banning them from Twitter. That would only bring more validity to what these accounts were saying if the government has to tell foreign companies to silence them instead of challenging their speech.
If yelling “fire” in a movie theatre is so dangerous why not allow people to do it and don’t ban it and instead just arrest them after the stampede?
That’s a bad comparison. Yelling “fire” in a crowd to induce a panic is illegal and can lead to arrest. But that happens after you actually yell “fire” not before you might yell “fire”. In your example you say ban yelling “fire” when inducing a panic is already banned. Do you want people banned because of pre-crime?
So I agree with you about the whole “arresting people after they yell fire and not before” thing, but we’re talking about people who attempted a coup here, these aren’t hypothetical pre-crimes.
To your earlier point about going after the people who actually did the coup:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-64299892
According to this BBC article, 39 people were indicted within about a week of the attack
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Brazilian_Congress_attack
According to Wikipedia, 86 people have been convicted and sentenced to jail time.
I’m sure there are better numbers but I don’t speak Portuguese so I’m not going to find them.
Also, while this conflict did begin with Brazil wanting them to ban accounts who helped organize the coup attempt, x was banned because they refuse to appoint a Brazilian legal representative.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crkmpe53l6jo
We’re talking about the entire country of Brazil — 200 million people — being cut off from using X.
Yes, because the company refused to appoint a Brazilian legal representative.
Companies that don’t follow the laws of a country don’t get to operate in that country. The entire country of the United States - 300 million people - are cut off from enjoying Kinder Surprise. Are you equally outraged about that?
When a company says “Lol, we’re not going to have a way for you to hold us accountable” then a country is obviously going to shut them down. They’re not going to let a company ignore their sovereignty like that.
I’m not the person you’re responding to and I don’t care about twitter but
YES! If I want to choke on a toy hidden inside a chocolate egg then THAT SHOULD BE MY RIGHT!!!
Thankfully.
Yeah, it’s too bad it’s only 200 million, and only “X”. All the billionaire-controlled, black-box content algorithm social media sites are a cancer on humanity. Nobody’s freedom is being impinged upon by banning them; they’re the private fiefdoms of oligarchs, who blatantly wield them in service of their own agendas. Banning them is the sensible thing to do, and I can only hope that other governments follow suit.
Actually yes, the freedom to use those applications is infringed by banning them
Like if exactly 200 million people could afford eletronics (saying from experience) or caring about Twitter at all.
people are banned from doing things because they did things. e.g. if you DUI you get banned from future driving not just punished for the past. Hackers get banned from the internet etc
Oh, is X willing to help them find the operators of the accounts? Or are you suggesting they do something impossible instead of something actionable?
If the owners of the accounts aren’t operating in Brazil (likely) then there is little Brazil can do to go after them. X is operating in Brazil, so Brazil has the authority to go after X if they refuse to do anything about it.
Given the state of Xitter, I would argue that his control of Starlink is significantly more dangerous.