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Comment by dogma1138 | Hacker News Reader

This isn't might makes right this is a corporation pissing over laws, if this was some oil company killing seals would you respond in the same manner?

WhatsApp provides a service in a country, they gain direct financial benefit from almost 100M users, they received a subpoena and ignored it because it's Brazil, if this would've been a European nation they would most likely have complied, if it were a US court order they would for sure have complied.

The only "might makes right" here is WhatsApp ignoring the subpoena because they are an almighty multi billion dollar US company which thinks it's above the law. And on the other side we know that there's pretty much no company on the planet that would dare to defy a US subpoena or court order.

Should only US and "western" nation's legal systems be respected? Is this some how morally compelling to you?

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Things should be taken into consideration, a "confidential" investigation that closes an service used by millions of citizens is highly controversial. They don't do the same to any Telecom company, so that's very suspicious.

A spilling of oil is not controversial. It's damage made by a company accidentally and that is causing great environmental damage.

The Brazilian government has the power to ask try to enforce their legislation, but asking other companies to close the service should be the last thing they do. And if necessary, they should close the service completely, 48h is pure nonsense. They should arrest representatives before closing the service. this is nonsense. Also, the reasons are all confidential, so we can't even know it they are justifiable. This is manipulative, not transparent, and very keen to a dictatorship.

Lastly. Brazil is a "western" nation...

Subpoena is a subpoena, most wire taps and telecom subpoenas are confidential you can't really have your target knowing that you are tapping them can you?

No where did i mentioned spilling of oil it's just an example if an energy company doesn't want to cooperate with the government it's perfectly legitimate to order your energy sector to stop importing oil from them this happens quite often. Same goes for websites that violate laws like copyright which are blocked by ISP's.

The Brazilian government has no power over WhatsApp and WhatsApp knows this very well this is why they've utterly ignored them, this isn't some civil rights issue WhatsApp cooperates with US and EU countries all the time this is they CBA because it's Brazil.

And lastly Brazil was part of the 3rd world during the Cold War and is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement so it's really not a western country.

a wiretap does not close the entire communication channel, does it? You used an analogy to the oil spillage, that would not result in the same impact for rhetoric purposes, but they are not similar.

The cold war ended. Look at "Modern Definitions": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Modern_definitio...

For you "western" means "white and rich".

Again you are confusing what the subpoena was with what had to be done. When a company doesn't comply you force it, there is almost nothing that Brazil can do to WhatsApp other than to harm them financially and their only way to do so is to block them. The warrant was extreme yes but it also wasn't indefinite it was a warning shot, this would not have happened if WhatsApp would give the same amount of respect to Brazil as it does to N. American and European countries. But since Brazil isn't "white and rich" as you've so colorfully described they just pissed all over them. I really don't understand how can you argue for a corporation to piss all over the law. This isn't about privacy this is about respecting the legal framework of a nation which is one of the most important foundations of modern society, WhatsApp could as easily pissed over a law that protects your data as they pissed over a legal subpoena would you still go out of your way to defend them then?

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