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Comment by consumer451 | Hacker News Reader

“Twitter doesn’t have a choice but to obey local governments. If we don’t obey local government laws, we will get shut down"

- Elon Musk on decision to follow Modi's requests for censorship

https://www.business-standard.com/technology/tech-news/twitt...

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I don't know about India, but in Brazil, the requests sent to X (Twitter) have no legal basis, that is, they are illegal by nature. The entire process that resulted in this blocking is secret and not even the defense lawyers had access to the investigation.

I am not sure about India either, but according to my extensive legal training from looking at this wiki entry... it appears to be legal, yet probably unconstitutional.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_India

I am not sure why people keep bringing up Turkey or India as a justification for authoritarianism in Brazil. The orders for content takedowns in India were more obviously legal and were not done in secret, but in full public view with clear avenues for legal challenge.

On the other hand, in Brazil Alexandre de Moraes sits on two different courts at the same time and claims that one court gave him the power to unilaterally censor/ban/arrest people in secret from the other court. It is obviously a farce, even to the slightest investigation. Twitter/X is correct to challenge it since it isn’t legal within Brazil.

This is not the government

The parent is saying Musk complied with these requests elsewhere without complaint, he's only making a fuss about it in Brazil. It's an odd hypocrisy or shift in strategy.

strategy about what? Elon isn't bound by some personal institutional law, he acts according to his whims. Even if we assume he was being hypocritical, the severe response from the judge makes the latter seem like he has ulterior motives

ps. every major company has applied double standards wrt censorship requests in the past, the subject has a long history

Strategy about complying with censorship requests. He's happy to do so when it aligns with his politics, and makes a huge fuss when he it doesn't.

As a distant observer, it seems wild to me that anyone thinks this is about free speech.

X has an office in Bengaluru that does engineering, so leaving India would be non-trivial.

Also Modi is an elected popular leader. India's censorship laws have been passed through the normal means. If Musk pushed back most Indian institutions would rally against him.

de Moraes is a chief justice making decrees that it's not clear he has the power to make. He's doing it in an unhinged fashion. Getting out of the country until things cool down is probably the smart move.

For the record, if Musk is to be believed, the requests from the government stink IMO. However, the judge making this ruling is part of the government and setting the law, is he not?

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