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Comment by cassianoleal | Hacker News Reader

This is not censoring "the Internet". Meta and Facebook are a private company incorporated in a foreign country.

And their size puts them in a different class. If a foreign entity has effective powers that make it similar in some ways to a foreign state, it makes sense to treat it as such.

Ok so sanction and fine their ass until they start behaving. If we can sanction north korea for having an ideology we don't like, surely brazil can sanction meta's ass for trying to blatantly meddle in another state's affairs. Bar every employee from traveling there. Freeze any assets. Use diplomacy to pressure the US to press charges. Make them come to heel for chrissake

Or, just ban them.

And they can stay private and isolated to that foreign country. Everyone happy

how do you block access to it without going to TCP/IP level? And when governments do that, everything goes to shit

Not supporting the idea, but this feels like the traditional technical details vs practical real world solution.

Rather than banning individuals right to access a site, and then playing technical whackamole, you make that company's ability to operate in a country illegal. this puts the incentives and the technical onus where it belongs.

Again not saying they should or I support the notion of banning a site. Just that there are practical legislative solutions.

Make it illegal. Make it illegal for local advertisers to do business with them. Sanction individuals that cannot be locally prosecuted. Sanction the company.

It's already a requirement that to operate in Brazil they need local representation. Someone local who can be prosecuted, even if it's just a proxy - I'm hazy on the details but I remember reading about this at one point when they went after Twitter.

Is it going to fully stop Brazilians from using the service? Most likely not, but it will almost certainly reduce their usage, and the remaining users become a less profitable product to Meta, since they're not going to see ads for companies they can actually spend money on.

This changes incentives and may well be enough to make Meta rethink their policies. Or not, but then its effects can be measured and adjusted.

So actual government censorship.

Yeah, like the US government already does with about 10 countries on this planet.

Better than Facebook censorship. I can vote for my government. I have no control over the whims of Zuck (or the US Gov).

The government was elected. Zuckerberg wasn’t.

Censorship by elected governments is OK?

When it's done to protect democracy and the fairness of elections, especially against foreign interference? You bet!

With adequate checks and balances, following laws approved by a democratically elected legislature, and when it's done to protect democracy and rule of law, then yes. If we can limit the reach of someone yelling "fire" in a crowded theater in order to cause a stampede and harming people, why not preventing the already yelled word from being heard by the crowd and cause the action to fail?

Actual government censorship of a censor who tried to censor that government.

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