Brazil Shut down X/ Twitter, like I care!
So Brazil has shut down X/ Twitter!
It's all gone off (quite literally) because of a row over disinformation, at least disinformation according to a high court judge in Brazil, obviuously not Elon Musk who is a radical free speech advocate.
The Brazilian State did give X a chance to stay open, but X failed to comply with the State's demands: namely they failed to pay a fine and to appoint a new legal representative as requested.
Elon Musk clearly thought the Brazilian authorities were too weak to stand up to him, but he got this wrong and a High Court judge pulled the plug back in early September, leaving the 20M X/ Twitter users high and dry!
Musk's then attempted to subvert the ban...
He initially tried subverting the block by maintaining access via his own Starlink, but he then backtracked.
He then tried a further subversion of the block more recently by updating its communicaation network so access to X was routed outside of Brazil, via Cloudfare, but this has since been remedied.
NB Cloudflare had to co-operate with this because you can't just blanket ban all traffic going through Cloudfare, that'd ban half the internet apparently!
Implications...?!?
We've seen autocratic coutries such as China and Russia banning Wester social media before, but this is the first time a democracy has shut down a Big Tech platform, and this is HISTORIC.
There is a rational.... Twitter/ X blatantly fails to comply with governments' requests to take down misinformation, in the case of the UK riots in early summer 2024 Musk even spread misinformation himself.
And these platforms have a huge capacity to undermine democracy through manipulating the information people are fed, especially in the build up to elections.
Subtle changes to algorithms can make less visible those posts which Musk and other Tech Barons do not favour, and such changes are hard to monitor because there is no oversight of the algorithms, no one outside gets to see them.
So maybe this change is a good thing. Maybe governments for too long have been too passive with these social media companies. I mean not that governments are the good guys, not that governments can themselves guarantee us access to a balanced reporting of information, but because the information processing processes on platforms such as X/ Twitter and Facebook are black boxed, which makes me personally feel a little uneasy!
Having a billionaire decide the processes that govern what information I get isn't necessarily any better than political representatives.
Then of course there's the fact that X/ Twitter and Facebook are not the only ways of communicating, there are plenty of alternatives.
And also, maybe, just maybe, putting a spanner in the works of these quick-link platforms where rapid-fire first to get it out is what counts practices is going to be good for us all.
I mean personally I analyse the news a week after it's happened, I just find that's a much more balanced way of assessing what's going on, and it's very rare I need to know something NOW - if it was that urgent someone would damn well phone me, or the neighbours would knock, or I'd hear people screaming.
And I don't like Musk, he's a petulant child that just seems to want to play disruptive political games now that he's 'got his'.
Anyway, just a rant!
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
Unfollowing you
As a brazilian 'll update some infos... Yeap, an unilateral bad decision by a supreme court ministry (from 11 chairs), that normally have to vote over judgments, and needs a majority minority to pass something (6 votes).
These infos below were voted some 2 weeks ago and since then I think its paused waiting a next session, cause I couldnt find that much recently info beyond it and don't track that much...
So Im not totally sure on updated infos and am gathering through "veja" news.
So there are 3 kinda of impeachments protocols tryings to be pushed against him by votings ongoing.
One from the senate. 36 pro, 29 undecided, 16 against. Thats needs 2/3 of it to pass (54).
Another from the federal deputies, which current is 157 in favor, 229 undecided and 128 against. Which I think also needs 2/3, but am not sure and cant see the info.
Another is through a public signature petition, that needs 5 millions signatures and current has 1.5 million.
And I totally agree our contry still has many issues with legislation and politicians!!
It's all over the place!
Moraes, the only high court judge involved in this, asked X to remove the profile of a senator of the republic and a 16-year-old girl from the air, but he didn't say why and in Brazil there is no law on disinformation. The legal process is to report it to the public prosecutor's office and only then go to trial, but what Minister Moraes does doesn't have that, he puts it in a process that started in 2019 that even served to annul the trial of the biggest corruption scandal in Brazil, this process never ends and serves to persecute.
Source: https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2024/08/15/apos-x-nao-retirar-perfil-de-marcos-do-val-do-ar-moraes-aumenta-multa-para-r-200-mil.ghtml
Note: In Brazil, a senator has a law that allows him to say whatever he wants without being punished for it.
"Art. 53. Deputies and Senators are inviolable, civilly and criminally, for any of their opinions, words and votes.Elon Musk removed all Brazilian employees for fear that they would be arrested, and the Supreme Court Justice took advantage of a loophole in the law to ban X from Brazil once and for all.
It's not true, see what Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare said about the case.
All this was happening when a scandal was being leaked on Twitter involving this Supreme Court judge, who was arranging with other federal agencies to get those involved convicted.
OK thanks for the further clarification!
If it is to communicate, there are alternative platforms, Musk just cares his image and profits.
Yes fair point!
Musk just keeps saying stupid shit for attention. I'm not sure he cares about free speech as long as he can spout off. I've not seen all the details of this case, but governments are still figuring out how to hold companies to account.
I hate to think what damage Musk will do if Trump wins and gives him a job.
Can you imagine, Musk with government backing?!?
Another unstable idiot.
Totally with you on this. As far as governments in a democracy banning social media, not so sure... especially given what our brasilian hiveans already posted here. ;)
I'm not a fan of either actor TBH!
On that we also agree :)))
Let's introduce everyone to VPN LOL.