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Comment by lobocinza | Hacker News Reader

Supreme court members weren't democratically elected. The aristocratic families that own the Brazilian political system and pull the strings behind the curtains weren't democratically elected. Even Maduro, self-appointed "democratically elected" president of Venezuela, from time to time make fun of Brazilian electoral system. Unelected foreign billionaire as a bonus doesn't force me to pay taxes or force me to use X.

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> Unelected foreign billionaire as a bonus doesn't force me to pay taxes or force me to use X.

I see this sentiment almost everywhere in the world: people rightfully afraid of their own governments and willfully grant influence over their country to the foreign and often enemy state.

This is a systems problem with positive feedback loop, which means that whoever wins will have all the influence and control over the population over time.

And a lot of people see no problem with the fact that it can be the geopolitical enemy until it is too late.

I don’t know the situation in Brazil, but I see this happening over and over in my part of the world.

You're assuming that the interests of the state are aligned with the interests of the people which is a false premise. The state is a parasitic organism and those in power will always seek their own interests and those of their allies. What liberal democracy achieved is to somewhat bind the interests of the rulers to those of the majority of the population. But this is history as soon as the state starts to control the Internet because today technology enables effective and cheap mass surveillance and censorship like done on China. In the current path all democracies will slowly evolve to illiberal democracies which are effectively authoritarian in all but name.

In Brazil the ruling party (and also the "opposition") are enamored with the Chinese model and as such Musk influence is much preferable and is a balance force in the current political system. If X is blocked in Brazil it will join the select roll of Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan.

> You're assuming that the interests of the state are aligned with the interests of the people

No, I don’t assume that. I am very well aware that the reality is much more complex.

Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are using Twitter very effectively to divide people in targeted countries. From what I see, Musk is using free speech to effectively help these states achieve their goals. And personally, I don't know yet why he is doing that.

Twitter is no longer an answer to fighting authoritarianism. It was in the previous decade, but that time is gone now.

No more positive change is driven by the Twitter and similar platforms, it is more of divisive and destructive propaganda machine.

You're assuming a politically active billionaire's interest of a hegemonic country with platforms staffed by "ex" security/intelligence of said country are are aligned with interests of countries they deem adversarial. Like it or not that's why everyone is enamored with the PRC model, because it's simply treasonous to allow the captured interest of a foreign billionair ("seek their own interests and those of their allies" aka Musk and US gov) to dictate your domestic information sphere when interests are not aligned, and going by historic US foreign policy in your region, default hostile.

Non sequitur. My loyalty is first and foremost towards God, myself, my family, my friends and extended family, my community, my ideals. It makes zero sense to speak of loyalty towards the state when the state interests are not only not aligned but sometimes diametrically opposed to the interests of its citizens. As a matter of fact nobody cares for the state interests except fools and those that benefit from it like state employees. Frequently not even the ruling party cares because their own interests are foremost and first and unlike a monarch they have a much lower time preference.

You talk of Musk but he is a drop in the ocean of foreigners influencing the domestic information sphere. Let's ban Instagram, Youtube and all other foreign platforms, let's ban the Internet and have a country-wide intranet, let's ban all foreign NGOs and think tanks, let's ban Soros (talking about politically active billionaires), let's ban foreign news agencies and journalists, bye bye CNN, DW, BBC, etc. I suspect the only reason you're isolating Musk is because of the ongoing US cultural war and you being team blue.

> Let's ban Instagram, Youtube and all other foreign platforms, let's ban the Internet and have a country-wide intranet, let's ban all foreign NGOs and think tanks, let's ban Soros (talking about politically active billionaires), let's ban foreign news agencies and journalists, bye bye CNN, DW, BBC, etc.

Of course we should have laws for all of them to follow.

Isn’t that obvious? No-one gives CNN a free pass to broadcast whatever they want on the sovereign territory of any state.

The same applies to other entities from your list: there should be no difference between Soros, Musk, Zuckerberg or some NGO in terms of following state rules.

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