At some point we have to come to this realization in the west that absolutism is never the answer. Free speech is good upto certain extent, the way it was at Twitter before the rich and powerful took over. Moreover, it is content moderation and it doesn't have anything to do with free speech.
The government in Brazil does not like X because users are critizing the government.
Unfortunately Brazil is barely a democracy and it’s infested with little potentates.
This baseless personal assertion does not pass the smell test. I'm going to explain to you why.
Elon Musk's Twitter is happily censoring opposition of totalitarian dictatorships such as Turkey's Erdogan regime, and the only remark that Elon Musk published regarding censoring Turk opposition parties is that Elon Musk's Twitter would risk being removed from Turkey. Elon Musk, when he caved to Erdogan's demands to censor his opposition, famously said
> “Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors...
So for Turkey's totalitarian dictatorship Elon Musk finds it acceptable to censor opposition by arguing bullshit like "either we show some content or no content", but for Brasil's democratic regime, which barely managed to fend off a fascist military coup, when they request Elon Musk's Twitter to appoint a legal representative to handle requests... That's suddenly unacceptable?
Bullshit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Brazilian_Congress_atta...
It's a bit more, isn't it?
Up to the extent that you agree with it?
That's the norm in Elon Musk's Twitter. Since his takeover, content like white supremacy, antisemitism, and industrial state-level propaganda operations from fascist and totalitarian regimes is perfectly ok to publish on that platform. Criticism of Elon Musk or fascist regimes, however, is completely different.
Elon Musk's Twitter was also caught hardcoding censorship and throttling of both pro-Ukraine discussions and users who published pro-Ukraine content. Russian bots however have free reign.
More importantly, Elon Musk's Twitter is finding itself in trouble in Brasil not because of censorship, but because Elon Musk made it his point to go to great extents to avoid even appointing a legal representative to handle complains of illegal activity. This isn't even about censorship, but complying with basic legal requirements. It's like bitching that having to pay taxes is persecuting based on free speech just because you refuse to even file a form.
Until you own speech is banned right? We are the "good ones" after all.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Brazilian_Congress_atta...
From what I've read, that was not exactly what's happening with Elon Musk's Twitter in Brasil.
From what I've gathered, Brasil informed Elon Musk's Twitter that in order to comply with Brasil's law regarding disinformation, libel, and propaganda, they had to appoint a legal representative to be contacted by Brasil's judicial system to address reports of illegal activity. In response, Elon Musk basically ordered Twitter to dissolve all of its corporate presence in Brasil to retaliate against the demand, thinking that without a legal presence in the country that Twitter would magically become immune to Brasil's jurisdiction.
Except that Brasil's judicial system does have some tools and the means to prosecute uncooperative entities, particularly private individuals who hide behind corporate structures. Consequently, Brasil not only blocked Elon Musk's Twitter from Brasil due to Elon Musk's purposely uncooperative attitude but also has the legal means to go after the private individuals behind the decision to antagonize Brasil. Consequently, they enforced the consequences of Elon Musk's actions to Elon Musk's property in Brasil, such as Starlink.
Overall, this case is only orthogonally related to free speech. At it's core there's only one thing: Elon Musk making ill-advised decisions (reportedly against legal advise from his own legal representatives and in opposition to the actions of his legal representatives) and is now fabricating stories to distract people from the fact that all he is experiencing is the consequences of his own actions, which would be extremely easily avoided if he just listened to his own lawyers.
I am not ignoring anything. The fact is that Brasil has laws to fight disinformation and libel, and those laws are being enforced.
Your personal opinion also glances over the fact that Brasil was recently subjected to a coup attempt to drive the country into a fascist dictatorship, heavily pushed by a massive disinformation campaign in social media services like Elon Musk's Twitter.
What you are trying to glance over is the fact that none of this issue is related to free speech. Elon Musk tried to avoid complying with a nation's laws with a ill-advised stunt of pulling Twitter's corporate presence from Brasil. As expected from any jurisdiction in the world, not cooperating with the judicial system bears consequences.
To drive the point home, I stress the fact that Elon Musk did far worse to support fascist and authoritarian dictatorships attacking free speech, such as his support for Erdogan's regime censoring opposition and non-supoortive posts during the last sham elections. For that, Elon Musk's reaction was claiming that either some messages were boosted or all of them were boosted, and he claimed it's better to have some (only supporting a dictator) than none. But for Brasil, the need to appoint a mere legal representative to process requests was now deemed too much? And enough to pull a dying company from a +200M market? It doesn't pass the smell test.
Justice Moraes had ordered that X accounts accused of spreading disinformation - many supporters of the former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro - must be blocked while they are under investigation.
He said the company's legal representatives would be held liable if any accounts were reactivated.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y3rnl5qv3o.amp
They wanted Musk to appoint a legal representative so they could throw them in jail.
Other companies, such as Telegram, also have faced the same and they simply appointed a representative. If you research you'll see that no representative has been jailed, so this whole "they would have jailed the representative" narrative is bs
If I were to follow the same logic as these judges, I would call for your comment to be deleted and for your account to be suspended. After all, you committed the crime of spreading "disinformation" and "misinformation". You were wrong on the internet.
Rejoice, for I do not agree with their logic. You can be wrong on the internet all you want, and I will not call for your censorship. For I believe that is a fundamentally immoral thing to do.
Not even that. Brasil requires media companies to appoint legal representatives to handle complains of illegal activity, and instead of complying with the law Elon Musk opted to pull the company out of Brasil.
The funny thing about this shit show was that Twitter's legal representatives were actually complying with the law, but Elon Musk himself was contradicting and undercutting Twitter's representatives in Brasil. Until he simply pulled out of the company from the country, as if that was some kind of legal gotcha. Except that Brasil doesn't fuck around and it's legislation recognizes that there are always real flesh-and-bone people behind corporate structures, this the judge applying the legal consequences of Elon Musk's decisions to Elon Musk's property in Brasil such as Starlink.
If that was the case all millions of sites that operate in Brazil, without having legal representatives in the country, would have to be blocked, which doesn't happen. The truth here is that this Supreme Court "judge", which is more like a de facto dictator at this point, wanted essentially a hostage. Someone who he could jailed to blackmail Musk – as Moraes threaten to do with the previous representative, which was the reason for why Musk shutdown X operation in the country . It's that simple. Them going after Starlink, a totally different legal entity with different investors only proves this mafia-like style and how much of banana republic the whole country became, with zero legal certainty.
You are talking about something you really don't understand, such was what is happening in the country. Nobody outside Brazil is taking the decisions of this judge serious. Not even Interpol, which denied countless Red Notice alerts that this "judge" tried to issue, such as when he tried (and failed) to go after exiled journalist Allan dos Santos living in the USA and Oswaldo Eustáquio living in Spain.
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2021/11/interpol-segura-...
https://revistaoeste.com/brasil/pf-nao-inclui-oswaldo-eustaq...
Again, you are really talking about something you have absolutely no idea.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Brazilian_Congress_atta...
And "this" as in a protest? Like countless others before? Whatever. You're not gonna call it a coup, right? Even the Wikipedia article you cited doesn't call it one.
They call it attack and invasion.
The reason why it isn't called a coup is be cause they failed.
And it's not the ministry of truth but multiple independent sources in and outside Brazil.
At a certain point something is obviously fake. And if it's spreading violence it reached the limit of free speech.
Aren't all protests? I don't remember many protests that didn't involve closing down roads, burning things down and whatnot. Protests that don't do things like that are usually so irrelevant they don't get Wikipedia articles written about them.
> The reason why it isn't called a coup is be cause they failed.
It's not called a coup because it wasn't one. A coup attempt would be the military seizing power by force. You know, the people with guns and tanks. A successful coup would be the military trying and succeeding.
There's simply no way you can claim a bunch of people, many of them elderly, equipped with bibles and flags, amounts to a coup attempt.
> And it's not the ministry of truth but multiple independent sources in and outside Brazil.
None of which have the power to censor anything. As it should be.
> At a certain point something is obviously fake.
If it's so obviously fake, then you don't need any censorship either. The fakeness will be self-evident.
Most protests are peaceful and even the violent one rarely invade government buildings. Whole different level.
>It's not called a coup because it wasn't one. A coup attempt would be the military seizing power by force. You know, the people with guns and tanks. A successful coup would be the military trying and succeeding.
It doesn't have to be the military. Most coups are by the military but it's not a necessity
>There's simply no way you can claim a bunch of people, many of them elderly, equipped with bibles and flags, amounts to a coup attempt.
No, but for a bunch of people who throw pickaxes and hammers at the police I can.
>None of which have the power to censor anything. As it should be.
That's the road to tyranny. Lies spread faster than the truth.
>If it's so obviously fake, then you don't need any censorship either. The fakeness will be self-evident.
Sadly some people fall for obvious fakes. Just look at all the flat earthers.
Nah. Occupying Brasília buildings is basically the standard brazilian protest at this point. Happened in 2016 as well, and they too insisted the country was suffering a coup, Probably more examples I can't remember off the top of my head.
> It doesn't have to be the military. Most coups are by the military but it's not a necessity.
In this case it absolutely needs to be the military. Because there's no way you can convince me that a bunch of people with bibles and flags tried to seize power in the brazilian capital.
> That's the road to tyranny. Lies spread faster than the truth.
Lies according to whom? You? This judge-king? Yeah, I'll decide for myself, thank you very much. I'm gonna look at the stuff and I'll reach my own conclusions. I don't need or want the judge's help.
> Sadly some people fall for obvious fakes. Just look at all the flat earthers.
Yeah, and? What are we supposed to do about it? "Help" them think correctly? Put the "right" thoughts into their heads? Send them to a forced reeducation camp? The mere thought of someone being that self-righteous is offensive to me. Even if they're right.
The existence of flat earthers is literally not an argument. I think it's illogical but if they want to believe it then it's their problem. It would be incredibly presumptuous of me to try to put the "correct" thoughts into their minds. If they can't be convinced by the study of physics, we're just gonna have to leave them alone and move on with our lives.
If someone can be duped by propaganda into becoming violent in favor of some cause, then democracy is justified in defending itself. Not a second before. And you don't get to "prevent" such things by censoring the speech that led to it either. Any government that steps over that line is a dictatorship.