Brazil judge opens inquiry into Musk for obstruction involving X

It's very easy to get, Modi aligns with right-wing politics whilst Lula in Brazil is left-leaning and directly opposes Bolsonaro who is a friend of Musk.

The extradition treaty with Brazil only applies "if the offense(s) committed are considered crimes by both countries"[0]. That is almost certainly not the case here.

[0] https://br.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/arrest-of-a-u-...

If a US citizen ever gets extradited to Brazil of all places just because some power tripping judge demands it, it means the world is too far gone already and we might as well try to start over from scratch in Mars or something. Actual brazilian citizens fled this country to the US because of this judge's persecution and the US granted them asylum. I can't even imagine a universe where they'd ship one of their own to be judged by this glorified kangaroo court. Seeing people even entertain that possibility feels surreal to me.

> worst case is X is blocked in Brazil, right?

Yes. The latest news here is Anatel (brazilian FCC) is just waiting for the judge's order. They'll probably just tell the ISPs to block Twitter at the DNS level. Brazil has not reached China's level yet.

Thank you for this comment.

You told a lot of fake things, so I'll just point out the first obvious thing:

> In Brazil, a judge cannot open an inquiry.

That's false. You can open an inquiry, if is an attack against the Supreme Court itself.

Article 43. In the event of a criminal offense at the headquarters or branch of the Court, the President shall initiate an inquiry if it involves an authority or person subject to its jurisdiction, or delegate this task to another Minister.

This is all follow on from 2020 orders to halt social media "disinformation" spread on Telegram and then Twitter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_de_Moraes#2020_Brazi...

Presumeably some of these blocked accounts are ones that Musk has reactivated and|or fresh accounts that have recently been ordered blocked that Musk has promised to reactivate.

There are several reports includin this HN linked one from Reuters and the full story isn't entirely clear to me.

The Brazilian Supreme Court Justice that Musk criticized has been granted unilateral power to order material censored and accounts removed from online platforms, without a trial.

X says that it wasn't even told what their offenses were, and was ordered not to disclose which accounts were ordered closed:

`X Corp. has been forced by court decisions to block certain popular accounts in Brazil. We have informed those accounts that we have taken this action.

We do not know the reasons these blocking orders have been issued.

We do not know which posts are alleged to violate the law.

We are prohibited from saying which court or judge issued the order, or on what grounds.

We are prohibited from saying which accounts are impacted.

We are threatened with daily fines if we fail to comply.

We believe that such orders are not in accordance with the Marco Civil da Internet or the Brazilian Federal Constitution, and we challenge the orders legally where possible.

The people of Brazil, regardless of their political beliefs, are entitled to freedom of speech, due process, and transparency from their own authorities.

—--

A X Corp. foi forçada por decisões judiciais a bloquear determinadas contas populares no Brasil. Informamos a essas contas que tomamos tais medidas.

Não sabemos os motivos pelos quais essas ordens de bloqueio foram emitidas.

Não sabemos quais postagens supostamente violaram a lei.

Estamos proibidos de informar qual tribunal ou juiz emitiu a ordem, ou em qual contexto.

Estamos proibidos de informar quais contas foram afetadas.

Somos ameaçados com multas diárias se não cumprirmos a ordem.

Não acreditamos que tais ordens estejam de acordo com o Marco Civil da Internet ou com a Constituição Federal do Brasil e contestaremos legalmente as ordens no que for possível.

O povo brasileiro, independentemente de suas crenças políticas, têm direito à liberdade de expressão, ao devido processo legal e à transparência por parte de suas próprias autoridades.`

It started in 2019 or so. If I remember correctly, some magazine ran a damning article on some supreme court judge. In response to that, the court gave itself essentially limitless powers to unilaterally censor, investigate and punish anyone they want. In essence they are the victims, the investigators, the judges, the jurors and the executioners now. They claim it's to combat "fake news". They decide what's true, of course.

It reached comical proportions in the 2022 elections. I submitted news of that here as it was happening.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33312582

These judges censored the candidate they didn't want to win. Says on the constitution that censorship is illegal, especially that of a political nature. Yet political censorship is exactly what they did. Hell they bragged about it. They went to public events to showboat about how they defeated him. I have the videos.

The current president is a communist and a socialist. He calls himself a socialist, I have videos of him saying it. They deemed it "fake news" to accuse him of it, and censored anyone who did say it. The current president is friends with the Venezuelan dictator, but it became "fake news" to say he was. He was arrested and convicted for the biggest corruption scandal of this country, I watched him give himself up on live television. They just threw out the entire case over a jurisdiction technicality so ackshually he's innocent and it's "fake news" to say he's a corrupt criminal. And so on. And so forth. Anything that made him look bad was "fake news". Until the right wing president lost in the elections by voting machines. By some silly narrow margin.

Twitter accounts were frequently censored during this time period. They would even censor politicians which theoretically have immunity precisely so they could not be censored in this manner. They're still getting censored but much less frequently now. After all, election's already over.

After the elections, people got fed up and protested it. Over a thousand people were arrested. Normal people, elderly people. They were literally clothed with the brazilian flag. They made some kind of makeshift concentration camp in Brasília and put them all in there. Then they started dispensing 20+ year sentences like candy to these political prisoners. I've seen actual murderers get less time here. Some of those people actually died in that shithole.

Government took full advantage of it, called it a coup attempt and started persecuting the brazilian right. Banned the former president from politics over what was essentially wrongthink. It's only a matter of time before they order his arrest. All while they nullify the sentences of former government officials convicted for corruption and release drug traffickers from prison. They even give them their drug money back.

It's 2024 and the "fake news" inquisition is still ongoing. It's scope has apparently expanded to be nearly unlimited. They're basically judge-kings now. This is not a democracy. They did not receive a single vote from anyone and yet they rule. What is a people supposed to do when the supreme court seizes power like this? I watched my countrymen literally beg on their knees for the military to save them. The military heroically arrested them.

Sometimes I wonder if dang's gonna get a letter from one of these guys one day over my comments.

The reason for the accounts to get banned changes depending on the account.

But most of them is related to 1. Attack to Supreme Court justices (some of them even threatened Justices life) and 2. misinformation's about the voting system.