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Twitter The Courts

X Circumvents Court-Ordered Block In Brazil (theguardian.com) 81

Late last month, Brazilian Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X to suspend operations in Brazil after a months-long dispute with X owner Elon Musk. The conflict centered on Musk's refusal to appoint a legal representative in the country and his refusal to take down disinformation and far-right accounts. However, on Wednesday, X bypassed the court-ordered block by utilizing third-party cloud services, allowing many Brazilian users to access the platform without the need for a virtual private network (VPN). From a report: The number of Brazilians accessing X is unknown, according to [Abrint, the Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers]. "I believe the change was probably intentional. Why would X use a third-party service that ends up being slower than its own?" said Basilio Perez, a board member at Abrint.

Any revised order from Brazil's national telecommunications agency Anatel, which is responsible for implementing the court ruling, will need to be more specific, because blocking cloud access is complex and may jeopardize government agencies and financial services providers, Perez said.

Anatel has identified the problem and is working to first notify content delivery network providers, followed by telecom companies to block access again to X in Brazil, according to a person familiar with the situation. The same person said it is not clear how long it will take for the providers to comply with the order...

In a statement tweeted from X's global government affairs account, the company said the restoration of service was an "inadvertent and temporary" side-effect of switching network providers.

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X Circumvents Court-Ordered Block In Brazil

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  • By confronting them that way, you'll only teach them the witchcraft of network traffic mgmt to censor more of everything...
    • by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Thursday September 19, 2024 @07:01AM (#64799147)

      By confronting them that way, you'll only teach them the witchcraft of network traffic mgmt to censor more of everything...

      But if identifying dictatorship as damage and routing around it is the only way, go for it. This was one of the original stated advantages of the Internet itself.

      • by Inyu ( 919458 )
        Correct, but strategically for X it may be suboptimal to use the technological workaround. If you want China to consider allowing X, X needs to show that Elon Musk's claim that they are willing to align with each country's laws, is genuine and trustworthy. By showing the behavior of X with respect to other countries with technological rather than legal ways to get around the intent of the country's leadership (whatever it may be), is a sign that X may not be entirely genuine regarding the claimed intent of
      • This is not some battle for honor, Musk has no conscience, "freedom" is not his goal. This is about money. If they paid him to go away, he would.
  • Maybe (Score:1, Troll)

    by dhobbit ( 152517 )

    Twitter doesnâ(TM)t really offer much value these days might as well just shut it down globally.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by mysidia ( 191772 )

        Just take Musk into custody and extradite him.

        US law would not allow for extradition, since it would not be a crime if done in the US.

        We also have the SPEECH Act which says that US courts should refuse to recognize foreign judgements, Unless that foreign court provides the same rights as the 1st Amendment in the US and similar due process rights as the US constitution.

        • US law would not allow for extradition, since it would not be a crime if done in the US.

          It's not illegal to disobey and break a judge's direct written order/judgement? Your head must be so far up Elon's ass.
          Does contempt of court ring a bell? Or did Elon tell you that laws don't apply to him?

          • by Asgard ( 60200 )

            The analysis has to go further then 'well they found him in contempt, send him over'. If the predicate order was 'never say the word "lucky"', and he did and was found in contempt, I can see the US saying "it isn't a crime in the US to say the word 'lucky', so no we're not arresting and handing him over for that'. Simplified example, but you get the idea.

          • by mysidia ( 191772 )

            It's not illegal to disobey and break a judge's direct written order/judgement?

            Yes, but 1. Contempt of court is a misdemeanor in the US, not a felony. Treaties do not allow for extradition over a misdemeanor.

            2. The underlying Order/Judgment has to be successfully petitioned for and recognized by a court in the United States that has personal jurisdiction over Elon, and the Brazil court has zero personal jurisdiction over Elon. That means that Brazil would have to file in a US court FIRST and pers

  • Misleading framing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2024 @08:44PM (#64798249)
    Musk refused to take down accounts of elected officials based on opposite party's demands for censorship. Disinformation and far-right is framing of one party that won elections against another party that lost elections. However, because there are some parallels between Brazil and US/Trump, media coverage is very friendly to blatant free speech violations.
    • by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2024 @09:30PM (#64798349)

      It's notable the way these countries operate: They demand local representatives for one reason and one reason only: Somebody whose neck is close enough to wring, or head close enough to remove, even if it's one of their own citizens, so they have a way to enforce censorship "or the little bunny gets it". China, Russia, and France have made similar demands.

      • They demand local representatives for one reason and one reason only: Somebody whose neck is close enough to wring, or head close enough to remove, even if it's one of their own citizens, so they have a way to enforce censorship "or the little bunny gets it".

        You got it in one. You can't operate a company anywhere in the world without someone who is responsible and stops the company from breaking the local laws.

        The "enforcing censorship" is of course nonsense. All that Twitter has to do is stop criminals who want to overthrow the government (like Donald Trump, only worse) from organising through Twitter. So it's not "enforcing censorship", it is "enforcing their democratic laws".

        Good thing is that even though Twitter has no representative, and no money, th

        • Good thing is that even though Twitter has no representative, and no money, they can still get massive fines, and SpaceX is legally responsible for paying Twitter's fines.

          This is where things get... complicated.

          Twitter can absolutely be fined in absentia for violating Brazilian law. But the holding SpaceX responsible for paying the fines thing is questionable, legally.

          What Brazil has done is a form of what we in the USA would call piercing the corporate veil. Essentially, since Elon musk owns Twitter, he is responsible for Twitter's violations, and since he also owns SpaceX they take the money from the SpaceX account -because they can. It is like the bank taking money fro

    • But I haven't heard that either. What I have generally heard is that Brazil is upset that Elon is refusing to take down actual misinformation like anti-vaccine misinformation or the kind of stuff that inflames riots.

      I know that both Facebook and Twitter have been involved in multiple genocides and tons of race riots outside of America. There are several countries that are in much worse shape than we are in terms of race relations. Add to that the Russians going around causing trouble anywhere they can a
      • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        He isn't even taking down the left wing misinformation fueling assassination attempts on Trump.

      • But I haven't heard that either. What I have generally heard is that Brazil is upset that Elon is refusing to take down actual misinformation like anti-vaccine misinformation or the kind of stuff that inflames riots.

        'Brazil' is not upset, and has two million X users (according to that known right-wing source, AP News). One judge is upset because X refuses to ban the accounts of people favored by the previous administration and not by the current one. X has refused, as is its right because it's based outside the judge's jurisdiction. The judge has ordered X blocked in Brazil, which is his right, and the users are getting around the block with VPNs, as is their right.

        The just response to free speech you don't like is mor

        • One judge is upset because X refuses to ban the accounts of people favored by the previous administration and not by the current one. X has refused, as is its right because it's based outside the judge's jurisdiction. The judge has ordered X blocked in Brazil, which is his right, and the users are getting around the block with VPNs, as is their right.

          It is not one judge. Five out of 11 judges have been asked to confirm the judgment and they have. The people whose accounts were banned were fascists hell-bent on overthrowing the democratically elected government. Users trying around the Twitter ban using VPN can be asked to pay a fine of around $6,000. It is _not_ their right to get around this block as long as they are in Brazil.

          • Brazil has no law banning VPN usage. The judge threw a tantrum after it was pointed out to him that VPNs, which have the same ordinary commercial uses there as anywhere else, and pulled a "law" out of his own butt so he could impose mammoth fines that will never be paid for use of a technology that is by now undetectable. Good luck with that.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday September 19, 2024 @04:25AM (#64798875) Homepage Journal

      He complied with requests to ban opposition accounts on behalf of the Turkish government. It really depends how far right the person asking it. His issue with Brazil is that it's not a dictator demanding it.

      • by sinij ( 911942 )

        He complied with requests to ban opposition accounts on behalf of the Turkish government. It really depends how far right the person asking it. His issue with Brazil is that it's not a dictator demanding it.

        It is one possible and very uncharitable interpretation.

    • Musk refused to take down accounts of elected officials based on opposite party's demands for censorship.

      Yes he did [arstechnica.com]. And he had no problem doing it. He even gave excuses for why he did it.

      The "free speech" guy is a liar through and through. He very blatantly violates free speech [imgur.com] on a whim. You won't, but others might, watch the show next month [pbs.org] where Twitter insiders describe his erratic behavior and final capitulation to endorsing hate speech and right-wing ideology while suppressing free speech.

  • This is about censoring political opponents.
    https://www.wsj.com/world/amer... [wsj.com]

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2024 @09:53PM (#64798383)
    Go look up Elon musk's response when Turkey asked him to censor political opponents of the Turkish regime. Elmo is happy to censor for dictators all day long and if that's all Brazil wanted he blissfully comply.

    The only possible conclusion is this is about actual misinformation, as in stuff like anti-vax bullshit that gets people killed and stuff like the Russian bullshit that gets posted by their botnets like what we found out about with Tim Pool. In less less stable countries and countries with rougher race relations that can trigger riots and get people killed.

    But it was never about censorship with Elon. If it was he wouldn't have censored when Turkey asked him to.
    • without changing his values. Someone else is claiming that that's legitimate, isn't she?

    • by theCoder ( 23772 )

      This is a tired argument. Because X / Twitter under Musk didn't resist censorship demands in Turkey, it shouldn't also in Brazil? I don't really know all the details in either case, but I imagine there are different circumstances between them that might cause different reactions. Shouldn't we be happy that someone is standing against government censorship at all?

      Oh, then you go on to refer to bad things that "can trigger riots and get people killed." Which leads me to think that you are actually PRO cen

      • In Turkey a brutal dictator wanted musk to help him cheat in an election. In Brazil the government wants to stop the spread of harmful misinformation and lies, many of which are coming from hostile foreign powers.

        Elon has shown that he's open for business for dictators no matter what. That's the one thing he's consistent about. If you're an authoritarian dictator Elon is your friend.
  • ... blocking cloud access is complex ...

    Just do what the USA does: Kindly 'insist' the victim's ^H^H^H^H suspect's digital life be removed from the server.

  • The problem for anyone who really thinks they can't live without twitter: There are still massive fines for accessing it. Since you could only access Twitter by using a VPN, people were told that there are massive fines for accessing it through VPN. But the fine isn't actually for "using VPN" but for "accessing Twitter". High four digit dollars if I remember right.
    • The fine costs R$ 50000 or something like US$ 9226.

      • The fine costs R$ 50000 or something like US$ 9226.

        Oops. That's even more than I remembered. Most US citizens would think twice about doing something that could get them a US$ 9,200 fine, and then not do it. And Brazilians have on average less money. Explain to your wife why she can't go on a holiday for the next three years because you admire Elon Musk and just had to read Twitter.

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