Late on Friday afternoon, Justice Alexandre de Moraes – who has been engaged in a dispute with X’s owner, Elon Musk, since April – ordered the “immediate, complete and total suspension of X’s operations” in the country, “until all court orders … are complied with, fines are duly paid, and a new legal representative for the company is appointed in the country”.
He gave Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency 24 hours to enforce the decision. Once notified, the agency must pass the order on to the more than 20,000 broadband internet providers in the country, each of which must block X.
In an interview with the TV channel Globonews, the agency’s president, Carlos Manuel Baigorri, said the order had already been passed on to internet providers.
“Since we’re talking about more than 20,000 companies, each will have its own implementation time, but … we expect that probably over the weekend all companies will be able to implement the block,” he said.
Justice Moraes also summoned Apple and Google to “implement technological barriers to prevent the use of the X app by users of the iOS and Android systems” and to block the use of virtual private network (VPN) applications.
The decision imposes a daily fine of R$50,000 (£6,800) on individuals and companies that attempt to continue using X via VPN.
Late on Friday afternoon, Justice Alexandre de Moraes – who has been engaged in a dispute with X’s owner, Elon Musk, since April
A Justice isn’t in a dispute with anyone, Guardian. A Justice rules based on law. In the case of Brazil, the Justice system is based on Roman law, as opposed to Common law that is in effect in UK and USA. That means a judge has even less power, as they are tied to existing legislation and can’t rule unless there’s a specific codified law that allows them to rule in that way for that crime or misdemeanor.
Lets hope the EU will follow soon. Brazil leads the way!
The brazil Judiciary want some profiles blocked. Is that what the EU should demand too?
Blocking profiles seems heavy handed, and best aimed at the individual, not the provider.
Well, there are quite some profiles doing nothing but spreading hate and misinformation in ways that exceed the limits of free speech, and blocking them would be a good way to stay within the law. Many European countries have quite strong opinions on people spreading Nazi propaganda, for example. Or call for committing crimes or bodily harm. The EU demands removal of such post and even accounts, but X is getting slower and more reluctant in following the laws. I think, banning X in the EU is overdue.
in ways that exceed the limits of free speech
I think this part is key. X is hiding behind US laws which Brazil and the EU have very little say in.
They can’t hide if they have presence in or provide for Brasil/EU.
Spread it to Everybody from Brazil: Leave Xitter, JOIN MASTODON!
How to join Mastodon:
There is some misleading information in there. Probably better to just get straight to the point with the ‘standard’ https://joinmastodon.org/ link.
Is Xitter pronounced Shitter? Makes South Park prophetic again.
Of course it is.
I think that site has incorrect information. They wrote “you need to sign up separately on every server on Mastodon to see their community posts” but surely that’s the opposite of what the fediverse is about? Mastodon’s server page even says that with a single account you can see everything.
How about not using “Social Media” at all? Too out there?
When you’re too corrupt, even for Brazil, that really does say something.
You know how Americans have ZERO base to stand on talking about other countries anymore? Didn’t get the memo? You guys are the bottom of the barrel now in every aspect. Sheesh.
They’re more WhatsApp people than Twitter people anyway.
But this is pretty standard legal stuff. Musk just doesn’t think he has to send a lawyer down to argue his case. He can blow it off, thinking that he’s simply above the law.
It isn’t even corruption, per say. It’s just entitlement slamming into another state’s basic sovereignty.
Well, maybe I’m just too GenX, but, to me, that’s a distinction without a difference. WhatsApp is texting with extra steps, and Twitter is for Nazis. I’ve never used the former and gave up the latter along with FB and insta early on during covid. Reddit was my last social whatever, and I jumped that ship last June for this last shout.
I’ve never had tiktaky or snapsnore. Most of my time on my phone is spent either here or listening to news podcasts— which is pretty much what I did as a teenager: listening to NPR as my morning routine then a news/music mix throughout the day.
Hmmm…. How unusual and a little confusing to be both impressed and disappointed in oneself… well that’s why some of our best paid scientists are furiously genetically engineering new strains of cannabis! So I don’t have to deal with this shit!
sounds feasible except the “blocking the use of vpn apps” part?
At best that’s just unclear. Blocking VPNs isn’t impossible, just impractical. And it’s not like Brazil just became China. At worst, the just made accessing X impracticality expensive for its users— which, in Brazil, is a lot of people. In typical Brazilian fashion, they’re hitting Elon in the wallet.
The main goal is to get the convicted offenders to not make posts anymore, and if they do the law will be able to find and punish them after the fact.
I’m talking about the accounts that the courts asked X to suspend but X denied.
Yeah, that line was particularly concerning. I’m all for watching Elon get a Brazilian beatdown, but that feels like a pretty large overstep.
Why? VPN is not a magic bullet. Wait, did you believe their marketing??
can you elaborate?
as it is, your comment is not comprehensible. Why what? Whose marketing? Marketing for VPN? “Magic bullet” for what purpose?
VPNs can be blocked by governments or worse, the data can be decrypted giving you a false sense of security. In any case if the governments wants to it can easily see if you connect to a VPN and give you trouble just for that. Same goes for TOR.
Wait, there are 20,000 ISPs!?
idk where that number came from, but there’s a survey from 2022 listing 11,630 providers. That would average 2.08 per municipality and makes sense imo. The larger-scale telecom infrastructure is still an oligopoly though.
I’m guessing they mean regional subsidiaries, Brazil is big, but not that big.
105% the landmass of the lower 48 states of USA.
Brazilian sounds like a lot.
It’s 7 times less than German
What are you talking about, brasil has 214m inhabitants. Germany 84m
Oh, right, forgot about this for a minute😅
I’m kind of on the fence with this one.
As much as I dislike Twitter/X and it’s owner; their ‘crime’ is refusing to silence the political opponents of those currently in power, then further refusing to pay fines for that decision… Decisions, at least in principle, I agree with.
That said: I haven’t actually seen the content that’s at the center of this dispute; the posts of those political opponents. I’m also not very familiar with Brazils politics, so perhaps there’s context I’m missing.
It seems that the strongest justification is that they closed their local branch, and have no legal representation here in Brazil, which is required by law for them to be able to operate.
If that’s what you think is wrong with Twitter, you might be one of the bad guys
their ‘crime’ is refusing to silence the political opponents of those currently in power, then further refusing to pay fines for that decision…
Isn’t it natural: if you refuse to obey numerous court orders and pay your fines, you’ll get even worse court orders. This is not exactly the way to challenge the reasons for these other orders.
Gotta love the lemmy hive mind being pro censorship just to hate on elon
