[flagged]
If this surprises you, you have not been paying attention. It’s the same ridiculous song and dance every time. He makes a big fuss of free speech and being an absolutist about it, but always caves in fast.
https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-24/under-el...
https://www.vice.com/en/article/elon-musk-censors-twitter-in...
Not to mention when he censors stuff just because he doesn’t personally like it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/technology/twitter-substa...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/15/elon-m...
Calling Musk hypocritical on free speech is nonsensical. Twitter is far less censored and much more permissive since the acquisition, and that’s a good thing for speech and democracy. The guardian opinion article is just unhinged.
Yet the old Twitter fought and won against far more of these orders in these places, whereas Musks Twitter follows them more readily. Why do you think that is? I see two possibilities:
1) the governments have suddenly improved their approach for these orders, making them harder to win against in court
2) Twitter isn't fighting against these orders as much anymore
I certainly know which option seems more likely...
X cannot credibly maintain a pretense of standing up for free speech principles when the so-called "free speech absolutist" at the helm of X is curiously quiet about the world's largest censorship machine.
Why is it a pretense? Is X more free than before? Are they doing more to speak up in defense of free speech? Yes and yes. There’s no pretense around it. You can be a free speech absolutist, speak up in its defense, and also be smart about which battles you fight.
In particular, Brazilian law does not grant freedom of expression for political speech that has clearly defamatory intent, constitutes an insult, makes disparaging judgments or represents denigrating criticism. That may not be the letter of the law, but it is its spirit, as set by precedent and academic literature.
Keep in mind that this specific judge has the backing of the majority of the Supreme Court and, at the very least, the tacit support of congressmen who have the power to impeach him in case of abuses.
The letter of the law matters. It’s not just the freedom of speech by the way. The Brazilian constitution also prohibits secret tribunals, which is what Moraes is doing with censorship under gag orders.
> Keep in mind that this specific judge has the backing of the majority of the Supreme Court and, at the very least, the tacit support of congressmen who have the power to impeach him in case of abuses.
The rest of the federal court is probably too scared of him and the sitting government to speak up. Its’s not a sign of anything.
I respect your opinion, but that is really not how the Brazilian legal system works.
For instance, the constitution says that “the home is the inviolable refuge of the individual”, but this applies not only to “homes” per se, but also to every closed space where one may expect privacy.
Another example: the constitution says that only “Brazilians and foreigners residing in the country” have rights, but foreign tourists and legal entities have rights, too.
It goes both ways: the spirit of the law extends some rights and limits others.
> The Brazilian constitution also prohibits secret tribunals, which is what Moraes is doing with censorship under gag orders.
Secret court orders are a common exception virtually everywhere and have absolutely nothing to do with “secret tribunals”. Brazil’s constitution explicitly allows this exception in article 93, paragraph IX, in order to preserve the privacy of interested parties. In addition, secret orders are common in cases in which public orders would have hampered the effectiveness of said orders.
But congress will not impeach him while there is a left wing president appointing his replacement..
Even tough right wing politicians make a theater of wanting him impeached, and even send requests to impeach him to congress in the back is all negotiated that those impeach requests will not go forward..
Oh, who nominated this Justice, was a right-wing president as well.
And regardless of who indicated him, the right is not happy with him and would gladly get him replaced, but they will not while a left wing president is the one appointing his replacement..
And regarding the ban, yeah, there are definitely violations of free speech, just like in a bunch of other democracies, like the U.S., which banned TikTok [2].
[1]: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/world/2024/04...
[2]: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/24/1246663779/biden-ban-tiktok-u...
The brazilian constitution literally contains the words:
> Any and all censorship of political and artistic nature is prohibited
These accounts were engaged in political speech. The judge ordered their banishment. This is a form of censorship of political nature. Therefore what he did is unconstitutional.
It's a very simple argument that I make every time the topic comes up. Nobody has refuted it to this day. I've had people on this site cite lesser laws, irrelevant laws, appeals to the authority of the judge... But they haven't refuted it.
What is messed up here is how those things happened. It's not even clear if it's about hate speech, because the the censoring orders are themselves secret.
But then, the way Twitter handled things was messed up too.
I cited all the relevant parts of the constitution in a previous post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41599925
I could not find the exception you spoke of in the constitution.
I agree with you about the irregular and illegal nature of the orders. The judge did not even give the defense lawyers the details. This is not how a civilized nation does things.
It's usually based on the article 4°. And yeah, I do agree it pushes quite a lot from the literal text.
But anyway, it's the courts interpretation since the 90s. But you are right to question it.
I use this english translation of the constitution for citations:
https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017
Every point in the text is linkable.
Searching the constitution's text for article 4 gives me these:
https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017#s...
An enumeration of the republic's objectives in the context of its international relations.
https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017#s...
What appears to be some historic details concerning the transition from last century's military dictatorship to the democracy.
I still cannot find it.
Anyway...
I'm not exactly a fan of the "it's the court's interpretation" argument. It's an appeal to authority. The authority of these judges is questionable. They aren't real judges whose knowledge of law was tested by competition via concurso público. They're there due to their political connections. When it comes to correct application of the law, I'd sooner trust the judges in the lower courts than the current president's former lawyer.
I'm also not a fan of the word "interpretation". It opens the door to the selective and creative applications of the law. These judges usurped power when they started legislating instead of applying the law as written. I've had actual lawyers complain to my face about cases where these judges just made up their own interpretation instead of doing what the written text says.
I really want to see the article you speak of so that I can at least try to understand the logic they're using.
Those are not details about the transition from the dictatorship. They are expected to be followed by all of the remaining of the text. And yeah, that translation is correct, the actual text doesn't say that at all.
IMO, the entire thing is very bullshitty. There is an entire idea of "legal principles", taken out of context from random places on the Constitution, and the entire Judiciary upholds them, except when they decide not to. That started as soon as the constitution-writing assembly was dismissed.
(Just to add, even our first "democratically elected" president after the new constitution was picked by a decision like that.)
I see it now. Thank you. I don't agree with their interpretation but I see what you're getting at.
> the entire Judiciary upholds them, except when they decide not to
I started smelling bullshit too when I noticed this. These judges are not impartial at all.
> That started as soon as the constitution-writing assembly was dismissed.
How sad...
The popular saying here is "doctors think they're gods, judges know it". So things have always worked that way. Realizing this now as an adult is extremely demoralizing and disillusioning.
Where is this exception? Because I looked for it and I didn't find it. Every thread about this topic, I ask my fellow brazilians to cite this exception and I have yet to get an actual response. Best I've got was an anti-nazism law which is inferior to the constitution and therefore irrelevant, and should have been declared unconstitutional anyway. Not because I support nazism but because banning nazism, a political ideology, would open the door to banning other political ideologies.
So unless someone explains to me what this "exception" is, I won't be convinced.
Article 286 from the penal code prohibit to incite the practice of crimes.
Any speech, political or otherwise, that incite violence toward another is a crime..
Where does it say the judge can censor it?
> Term IX.
> expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific, and communication activity is free, independent of any censorship or license
If your speech hurts somebody, they get to answer and to be made whole. The original insult is not censored. We see it all the time with politicians insulting and threatening each other. The other party sues, judiciary applies a fine, that's all there is to it.
Until this happen the courts must assume the law is valid and apply it as such..
In the history of Constitutions, no constitution explicitly states that violent speech is protected. Because until now, they've never had to...it's always been understood. Indeed, the the First Congress of the U.S. passed the Sedition Act just a few years after America was formed and it remained law until 1920 (when it was repealed by Congress).
For more recent examples, yelling "fire" in a crowded venue is also prohibited (this example is given to law students). It is important to understand that the law separates the content of the speech from the act it represents, so saying the word "fire" is allowed; what is prohibited is the act of doing something that will inflict harm on others by causing terror and mayhem.
As most constitutions are based on the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. history is relevant to Brazil because it demonstrates that no Constitution protects unfettered speech. To apply the above to what is happening in Brazil: the words are protected, but the act of promoting violence is prohibited. Thus, the far-right extremists' accounts are censored (because they are using those words to engage in the act of inciting violence) but everyone else can say what they said because other people aren't trying to incite violence when they quote the extremists.
If we start censoring people who "call for violence" as part of their politics, oh boy, do I have a huge list of malefactors for these judges. Plenty of openly violent communist revolutionaries in this country, after all. I'm sure this supreme court would do nothing about them even if presented with such a list, though. After all there is a communist judge among them. This is a country where nazis go straight to jail but where socialists and communists walk the soil completely unpunished.
That's my biggest issue with decisions like these: the selectivity. Why is it that only one side gets to be extreme? This is just wrongthink.
Wrong. The accounts with orders for blocking were pushing a doxxing campaign against police investigators tasked with the January 8 coup attempt investigation. Doxxing/threats probably aren't protected speech anywhere in the world.
And I certainly did not witness anything you speak of. I don't remember reading any news of any "doxxing campaign" either. As far as I know, these are just politician accounts.
Someone here on HN once asked who the people named in the court orders were. I found nothing related to what you said when I looked them up on the internet.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41420849
Worst guy in there seems to be the guy who told Bolsonaro to order the military to close down the supreme court. Inciting the armed forces against the other powers is a crime but censoring him for it is still unconstitutional. They even censored their wives and daughters.
It's not clear to me that this kind of doxxing is actually a crime in Brazil though.