The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he hopes the crisis surrounding the social network X in Brazil might teach the world that “it isn’t obliged to put up with [Elon] Musk’s far-right free-for-all just because he is rich”.

Lula’s comments to the network CNN Brasil came after the supreme court voted unanimously on Monday to uphold the ban on X, which is now largely inaccessible in one of its biggest global markets.

The suspension was first ordered on Friday as a result of the company’s refusal to obey court orders requiring the removal of profiles accused of spreading disinformation and for the social network to name a local legal representative.

MBFC
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  • @[email protected]
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    -62 months ago

    If what these accounts said was so dangerous then why didn’t the government go after the operators of the accounts and arrest them? Instead they tried to silence them by banning them from Twitter. That would only bring more validity to what these accounts were saying if the government has to tell foreign companies to silence them instead of challenging their speech.

    • @[email protected]
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      72 months ago

      If yelling “fire” in a movie theatre is so dangerous why not allow people to do it and don’t ban it and instead just arrest them after the stampede?

      • @[email protected]
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        -42 months ago

        That’s a bad comparison. Yelling “fire” in a crowd to induce a panic is illegal and can lead to arrest. But that happens after you actually yell “fire” not before you might yell “fire”. In your example you say ban yelling “fire” when inducing a panic is already banned. Do you want people banned because of pre-crime?

        • @fartemoji
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          82 months ago

          So I agree with you about the whole “arresting people after they yell fire and not before” thing, but we’re talking about people who attempted a coup here, these aren’t hypothetical pre-crimes.

          To your earlier point about going after the people who actually did the coup:

          https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-64299892

          According to this BBC article, 39 people were indicted within about a week of the attack

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Brazilian_Congress_attack

          According to Wikipedia, 86 people have been convicted and sentenced to jail time.

          I’m sure there are better numbers but I don’t speak Portuguese so I’m not going to find them.

          Also, while this conflict did begin with Brazil wanting them to ban accounts who helped organize the coup attempt, x was banned because they refuse to appoint a Brazilian legal representative.

          https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crkmpe53l6jo

          • @[email protected]
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            -62 months ago

            but we’re talking about people who attempted a coup here, these aren’t hypothetical pre-crimes

            We’re talking about the entire country of Brazil — 200 million people — being cut off from using X.

            • @fartemoji
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              72 months ago

              Yes, because the company refused to appoint a Brazilian legal representative.

            • @[email protected]
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              52 months ago

              We’re talking about the entire country of Brazil — 200 million people — being cut off from using X.

              Companies that don’t follow the laws of a country don’t get to operate in that country. The entire country of the United States - 300 million people - are cut off from enjoying Kinder Surprise. Are you equally outraged about that?

              When a company says “Lol, we’re not going to have a way for you to hold us accountable” then a country is obviously going to shut them down. They’re not going to let a company ignore their sovereignty like that.

              • @[email protected]
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                22 months ago

                The entire country of the United States - 300 million people - are cut off from enjoying Kinder Surprise. Are you equally outraged about that?

                I’m not the person you’re responding to and I don’t care about twitter but

                YES! If I want to choke on a toy hidden inside a chocolate egg then THAT SHOULD BE MY RIGHT!!!

            • @[email protected]
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              32 months ago

              Yeah, it’s too bad it’s only 200 million, and only “X”. All the billionaire-controlled, black-box content algorithm social media sites are a cancer on humanity. Nobody’s freedom is being impinged upon by banning them; they’re the private fiefdoms of oligarchs, who blatantly wield them in service of their own agendas. Banning them is the sensible thing to do, and I can only hope that other governments follow suit.

              • @[email protected]
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                -12 months ago

                Nobody’s freedom is being impinged upon by banning them

                Actually yes, the freedom to use those applications is infringed by banning them

            • @[email protected]
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              22 months ago

              Like if exactly 200 million people could afford eletronics (saying from experience) or caring about Twitter at all.

        • @[email protected]
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          -12 months ago

          people are banned from doing things because they did things. e.g. if you DUI you get banned from future driving not just punished for the past. Hackers get banned from the internet etc

    • @[email protected]
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      52 months ago

      If what these accounts said was so dangerous then why didn’t the government go after the operators of the accounts and arrest them?

      Oh, is X willing to help them find the operators of the accounts? Or are you suggesting they do something impossible instead of something actionable?

      If the owners of the accounts aren’t operating in Brazil (likely) then there is little Brazil can do to go after them. X is operating in Brazil, so Brazil has the authority to go after X if they refuse to do anything about it.