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Comment by lieks | Hacker News Reader

As a Brazilian, I'm a bit torn on this issue. On the one hand, our social media regulations are terrible, are being approved without due process, and will certainly be used for (political) censorship. On the other hand, it's annoying that the US has to interfere, and concerning that they even can interfere in the first place.

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Social media is over rated. Ask Assange and Snowden.

What happens on social media is of the herd, by the herd, for the herd. As Nietzsche would say like organized religion it produces nothing but a herd or slave morality.

It will loose steam just like organized religion.

Give me one example of a social media regulation being approved without "due process" or whatever that means. It's annoying when I stub my toe on the couch or when I drop my slice of bread butter-first. It's a criminal attack on the sovereignty of another nation when the US tries to interfere.

> Brazil’s supreme court has ruled that social media platforms can be held legally responsible for users’ posts, in a decision that tightens regulation on technology giants in the country.

> Companies such as Facebook, TikTok and X will have to act immediately to remove material such as hate speech, incitement to violence or “anti-democratic acts”, even without a prior judicial takedown order

https://www.ft.com/content/4a5235c5-acd0-4e81-9d44-2362a25c8...

Twitter was blocked immediately, without a public hearing or appeal process.

> In early May 2023, when the bill was about to be approved, Google and Telegram used their own platforms to express their opposition to the bill to their Brazilian users, and soon after were forced to back down by government institutions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Congressional_Bill...

Brazil has a low "Freedom on the Net" rating, "partly free": https://freedomhouse.org/country/brazil/freedom-net/2024# .

>The justice, Alexandre de Moraes, temporarily banned Elon Musk’s social media platform X last year after the billionaire refused to obey court orders to suspend certain accounts.

>On May 11, the president of the Chamber of Deputies requested that the directors of Google and Telegram in the country be investigated for their actions against the bill, describing these actions as forceful and abusive of the companies' hegemonic positions in the market, motivated by economic interests, and cited possible crimes against democratic institutions.

I'm not even a supporter of the current Brazilian administration, or even the political system for that matter, but these companies MUST obey court orders and MUST refrain from using their positions to attack governmental institutions or to prevent legislation that goes against their economic-political gains. They may be above US law, but they will have to lobby harder if they want to go over some of them here.

> On the one hand, our social media regulations are terrible, are being approved without due process, and will certainly be used for (political) censorship

Luckily this isn't happening in the US and if it is definitely isn't getting rapidly worse.

This is happening in the US, but only in the case of US domestic politics. The relevant tech companies actually provide an incredibly free and politically uncensored service in most of the world simply because they don't give a damn about politics in country X and the politicians in those countries don't have the leverage over them to make them care like US politicians do. Censoring costs money, and these companies would rather not do it. Citizens of many other countries, like Brazil, are the beneficiaries of this situation.

Huh, Brazil is the poster child proving the opposite.

Censoring of e.g. Twitter in Brazil (and afaik India) has famously increased a lot after its takeover by US vice-president Musk.

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