This has been a bad week for Democracy/freedom of speech
Free speech absolutists should be just as irritated by today's X as yesterday's Twitter. Subbing out one set of permitted speech for a different set is not a free speech win.
January 8th in Brazil - "troubled Southern American country", "broken democracy", "banana republic"
January 6th in the US - just a blip in the world's most perfect democracy. etc.
He chose this.
Are you suggesting that he is also a member of the Brazilian supreme court?
I never suggested that.
He is member of Korean institutions defined by Korean constitution, similarly how this judge is of a Brazilian Institution. Neither means there titles bear any similarity to what they are doing or what power they are exercising.
I do not understand the impulse to evoke a completely unrelated thing to try to make a conceptual argument against a fact that you do not even attempt to directly refute. Brazil does not have a monarch. If you believe that Brazil is a monarchy, I encourage you to expand on what you think a monarch is both in terms of power and historical context.
Also I'm not sure it's very common for courts to arrest lawyers (and basically use them as hostages) because of their clients actions in most countries.
Courts can literally compel you to comply with court orders in virtually every country, unless of course as you have pointed out, you have the means to avoid being compelled.
The “… when this is done by an arbitrary and corrupt government” sentiment has no real meaning here as you have pointed out that Musk can avoid being compelled either way.
Also I really don't understand your overall point.
This is about a guy who faces no personal consequences whatsoever choosing to ignore court orders and a government penalizing his business for that choice. There is some speculation that maybe the judge is acting illegally but I haven’t seen anyone familiar with Brazilian constitutional law say that. There is also speculation that the judge is acting unethically, though the only “ethical” alternative offered is “let Elon Musk do whatever he wants”, which is less of an argument about ethics and more of a statement of what fandom a person subscribes to.
If the judge is acting illegally I sure hope the citizens of Brazil address that. If he’s simply pissing off a rich libertarian that’s popular on his own website then I hope he continues to do so.
I wouldn't necessarily use words like 'good' and 'evil' here but the fact that a judge can (arbitrarily) impose a fairly large fine on any individual using a specific foreign website says everything I need to know about that country and its judicial system. Genuinely curious how can someone defend something like that?
> “let Elon Musk do whatever he wants”, which is less of an argument about ethics and more of a statement of what fandom a person subscribes to.
I assure you I don't really care for Musk or most of the things he does and (especially) says. That's entirely besides the point.
even if it complies with Brazilian laws why would that matter at all? North Korea and Russia and all similar countries also have "laws"...
> If he’s simply pissing off a rich libertarian that’s popular
So a government censoring it's political opponents is fine as long as they are using a platform owned by a rich "libertarian" jerk? The implication being that no platform/social network can be trustworthy and ethical unless it cooperates with (semi)authoritarian governments?
This is where you are inserting “arbitrarily” as both a statement of fact and moral wrongness.
Every single court in every single country has the ability to issue court orders on businesses that operate in that country. It is true in the US, China, the UK, North Korea, France, Australia, Myanmar, Spain, etc.
Name a country! That country has judges that can do things that you do not like. Even things regarding your personal definition of acceptable limitations on freedoms, speech included. And it can seem arbitrary to you.
Your issue is not with Brazil’s court, your issue is with courts in general. Except for…
> I assure you I don't really care for Musk or most of the things he does and (especially) says. That's entirely besides the point.
This is a thread about Twitter being blocked. Is there an any other action taken by the Brazilian supreme court that you have an issue with? If not, this is not a concern about the Brazilian constitution, this is a petulant billionaire screaming “dictator!” loud enough from his soapbox that even people that aren’t in his regular retinue of credulous followers fall for it.
> So a government censoring it's political opponents is fine as long as they are using a platform owned by a rich "libertarian" jerk?
If the judge is following the law, and his only actual sin is pissing off some crybaby libertarian for having to comply with the law, then the judge has committed no sin at all.
Anyway all of that aside, all of this actually stems from Elon Musk refusing to comply with an investigation and court orders around an actual attempted coup in that country. Musk’s credulous supporters will either say “that’s not true because Elon posted that it’s about something else” or “actually the coup should have happened because Musk said the current government is bad and we should support undemocratic government overthrows because Elon says they are good”
His side of this is literally nonsense. It is defended by unserious people.
Not all laws are equal, just like not all countries and courts are. Some are more authoritarian and arbitrary than others and therefore inherently less legitimate.
> His side of this is literally nonsense > actual sin is pissing off some crybaby libertarian for having to comply with the law
Musk is a jerk, I get it and fully agree with that. How is this relevant, though?
Also you really have no issue with the attempted VPN ban and fines for individual who are using Twitter? Or a legal system that could allow something like that? Really?
“I see you said a mean thing, mayhaps you did not write anything else before or after that” is not a correct way to point out an ad hominem fallacy.
Which of the following statements would you agree with most?
A. This whole thing is not about the events of January 8th
B. The events of January 8th were good, actually. They should be repeated until the current government is forcibly overthrown and someone sympathetic to Bolsonaro is installed.
C. I do not care about the events of January 8th. My concept of freedom of speech covers incitement to violence, a right that does not exist in any country.
So it's the orders of one judge acting as judge, jury & executioner, which is not how we normally think of lawful process.
Now that is the Brazilian system but... there's a damn good reason other people don't do it that way. And a damn good reason that dystopian book was named "Brazil."
This question is an equally relevant response to someone pointing out an uncontested fact about how courts work.
Somehow, we came to normalize that US Tech companies, are above local laws. They pay virtually no taxes in countries they operate in.
The brazilian court does seem pretty arbitrary, and not behaving at all as we would expect (we, as in the 'West'). Just don't do business there and it's fine.
https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-censorship-elon-...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/05/twitter-accuse...
If you think Elon is doing this to defend "freedom of speech" I have a beautiful bridge to sell you.
That's simply false. The proper legal processes are being followed. It's just a narrative pushed by those who refuse to accept that their actions are/were illegal and have consequences.
> In Brazil, a judge cannot open an inquiry.
False allegation, the inquiry was asked by the Federal Police and the judge accepted it. If it starts with a wrong premise we can already know what's coming next.
The prior legal representative of X had all her personal bank accounts frozen.
If that is true it strongly biases me towards believing X is in the right.
Those are astonishingly authoritarian actions.
https://twitter.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1829296715989414281
The Guardian is a reputable, independent source. X is neither of those.
"The Brazilian supreme court has ordered that X be suspended in the country after the social media platform failed to meet a deadline to appoint a legal representative in the country."
"The dispute began in April, when Moraes ordered the suspension of dozens of accounts for allegedly spreading disinformation – a request Musk denounced as censorship." X, formerly known as Twitter, has been without a legal representative in Brazil since 17 August, when Musk announced that his company was shutting down its operations in the country “effective immediately” due to what it called “censorship orders” from Moraes. The service has remained available to users in the country.""
"Moraes’ April order to X to block some accounts stemmed from an investigation into “digital militias” who backed former president Jair Bolsonaro’s attempts to stay in power after his 2022 election defeat. After Musk refused to comply, the judge included him in his investigation."
"On Wednesday, Moraes gave the company 24 hours to appoint a new legal representative in Brazil – a requirement for foreign companies operating in the country – “under penalty of immediate suspension of the social network’s activities”."
The legal representative of a foreign company in Brazil is expected to be legally responsible for the actions of the company in Brazil. This seems to make sense as Brazil probably thinks having individuals be personally liable for company actions to improves alignment with local laws and gives Brazil more leverage over otherwise exceptionally powerful global organizations.
However my understanding of "Legal Representative" is the North American understanding. A lawyer who is representing the company and not liable for the companies actions (those would be the directors).
I think these articles would do well to add this clarification as threatening to in-prison, and freezing the accounts of a lawyer representing a client in court is wild.
Doing the same thing to a person with direct legal liability is a little more sane.
I suspect The Guardian and X's accounts are both correct and it comes down to the expectation of the Legal Representative in the Brazilian system.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a widespread fallacy. Attitudes like that gave us alliance with Stalin once, and subsequent 40 years of a Cold War.
Not all moderation is bad, and different places have different tolerances for it. I keep seeing people say "silencing the opposition" but not actually providing what that means in practice.
Could be authoritarian, could be not.
Given musk's history as a right wing agitator, I want to see data before coming to any conclusions here.
Why should the government be the one to make that decision? If anyone has a conflict of interest, it's them, no?
Government moderates speech all the time, and yes, there's obviously grey areas and opportunities for abuse with those systems. I want to see the examples. Not someone grinding an axe with "the opposition"... show me what was not allowed.
They're a bit different to people being allowed to have an opinion and say it without a tech giant (then) or judge (now) stopping them.
As for banning images - sure. Tricky. Don't particularly like nazi symbols, but I personally wouldn't ban them. They aren't magically evil symbols that trigger awful behaviour.
Absolutely not. That might be the absolute world's last content that should be touched.
What about opposition candidates spreading truthful information. You'd really moderate the truth away before you'd moderate blatant misinformation?
But when oppositional speech is like, "Covid vaccines are made from dead children, so you must not vote for whomever", I start to be like, a whole lot less sympathetic to the idea that we should not moderate at all.
Twitter isn't a platform to promote democracy, it promotes what Musk wants.
Twitter has turned into hot garbage. For years my feed was pretty clean as it's almost exclusively tech. Gave it up recently as it was clogged with right-wing conspiracy, odd videos and random made up AI young women randomly following me occasionally.
The guy literally gets community-noted every once in a while. It's free speech.
It's the reason for the entire news post we're all commenting on.
Before Musk, others were doing the same, but on the other side of the political spectrum from where Musk is now. Nothing new.
How can you freely choose who to vote without free exchange of information?