>“Although X may not be a top priority for most advertisers in Brazil, the platform needs them more than they need it.”
Really does seem like it came down to this point. Musk hoped Brazilian users would get angry with the government, and they just downloaded bluesky instead. Musk lost a month of Brazilian revenue and gained nothing.
I followed some Brazilians on my (mostly unused) bluesky account. Will be interesting to see if they stick around there, return to twitter, or use both.
> Musk hoped Brazilian users would get angry with the government
It’s like when he claimed he’d “document in great detail” how the boycotting advertisers would kill Twitter, and was smugly confident “Earth” would care. Absolutely delusional. The interviewer even understandably struggled with that line of reasoning.
Is that really true? I think platforms have strong network effects that make migrations to alternatives (like Bluesky) very difficult. However, a government shutdown of that platform, with the power/threat of violence, can break through that network effect by making the platform inaccessible to both sides (the people making tweets and their audience).
Migrations are indeed difficult but not at all impossible it seems. It feels like a tipping point has been reached and activity of what I would call high quality posters is now at such a level on bluesky that I can’t read it all from the relatively few people I follow. Even my own posts are getting traction that they didn’t until very recently. And people seem to be joining now not only because Musk drove them away but because it’s worth it on its own merits.
This shows the true value of the platform to end users is near zero.
Is that really true? I think platforms have strong network effects that make migrations to alternatives (like Bluesky) very difficult.
The network effect has negative value to the user; if the platform went away, everyone would migrate to a better platform, and everyone would be better off. The network effect is an artificial barrier to competition that only benefits the owner of said network, and it only works because collective action is harder than collective inaction.
There’s no technical reason different social media networks couldn’t be made to interoperate. The barriers that keep other platforms from building off of a successful network are largely legal, not natural.
I’m also equating these kinds of network effects with other artificial barriers to competition, like price fixing or mandatory non-compete agreements.
The influx of Brazilian users to BlueSky was pretty public(1).
> What's the word for posts like these online?
The word is “post”. When someone writes a thing and puts it online with or without a supporting body of evidence they are engaged in posting.
For example you have posited without evidence that there is a need for a special word for a post without evidence. I don’t know if that claim is true or false but it is, undoubtedly, a post
It is customary to learn the local slang for posts when you’re riding the information superhighway but in a pinch everyone knows what a post is, as it is the product that comes from the process of posters posting.
Sticking to fundamentals can be good when for example a literal insane person tries to tell you that an Xer Xes Xs on X. That’s just not true, nobody believes that wording is right.
In general, I think you're looking for self-fulfilling prophecy. Hearing the prophecy induces behavior that leads to the prophecy coming true.
Although I'm not sure sigmar's observation fits this criteria as it's a discussion of events that already happened, or that it will be disseminated enough to change the future if you consider it as a prediction of future events should some other widely substitute service cross the Brazilian courts.
Ex-Twitter wasn't the first service to get blocked in Brazil. Brazilians know from experience that if the service they use gets blocked, they should look for a similar service that's not blocked, and get on with their life. When the one they used comes back, they often go back, but it probably depends on relative merits. If you're a competing service, it's a great way to get a lot of exposure, but sometimes the load is too much and you leave a poor impression.
I don’t think any comment anyone makes here is going to will anything into existence.
And it’s a fact that Musk lost Brazilian revenue, gained nothing and that some percentage of users would’ve switched to Bluesky, Threads etc. during the block.
here we go again: criminal speech != free speech. A lot of, if not all of Alexandre de Moraes's decisions are around a real crime that happened Jan 8 2022 with a real coup attempt in Brazil (federal buildings were severely damaged). Some people pretend this didn't happen and come here and hide arguments behind free speech. These "censored" political influencers are investigated under the umbrella of this major case based on people who potentially had a major impact on influencing very simple people to commit crimes against democracy. Brazilian democracy is still at risk and should get support from digital platforms so we don't end up in a digital wild-wild west. This is still under secrecy investigation and the decisions cannot be judged by people who don't even have access to all the case material to begin with. I'm happy that Elon did the right thing. Hope he keeps collaborating with the law so we all can live in peace.
There was no "coup attempt". There was a protest. Occupying and damaging Brasília buildings is essentially the standard brazilian protest. It's happened before.
You call it a coup because they wanted the military to seize power. They didn't try to seize power for themselves, they wanted the military to rule over them. That's a valid political position. A coup attempt is the military actually trying something. An actual coup is the military succeeding at it. A thousand people with bibles and flags is not a coup or even an attempt at a coup. It's just a protest.
I don't believe he is only talking about the occupation of the parliament, which in my opinion could be considered a coup attempt, although a very disorganized and ultimately failed attempt.
But he is also talking about the leaked documents and dossiers that are being investigated as means to a coup. Organized by some high level military and other influential people, including the previous president.
> Twitter/X was standing up for free speech by fighting back on this censorship, which does not seem constitutional per Brazil’s own laws. But I guess at some point their profits were more important than principles.
If this surprises you, you have not been paying attention. It’s the same ridiculous song and dance every time. He makes a big fuss of free speech and being an absolutist about it, but always caves in fast.
These links don’t make a good case Twitter/X has a publicly stated policy of following the laws in local jurisdictions. They refuse orders that violate the local laws. Turkey has authoritarian censorship so following their local law isn’t controversial. The commonly cited case of India is bizarre since Twitter under Musk literally fought the Indian government in courts over censorship. Unfortunately India legalized certain forms of censorship with new laws that led to them losing the case. That’s why they ended up following the local laws.
Calling Musk hypocritical on free speech is nonsensical. Twitter is far less censored and much more permissive since the acquisition, and that’s a good thing for speech and democracy. The guardian opinion article is just unhinged.
> These links don’t make a good case Twitter/X has a publicly stated policy of following the laws in local jurisdictions. They refuse orders that violate the local laws.
Yet the old Twitter fought and won against far more of these orders in these places, whereas Musks Twitter follows them more readily. Why do you think that is? I see two possibilities:
1) the governments have suddenly improved their approach for these orders, making them harder to win against in court
2) Twitter isn't fighting against these orders as much anymore
I certainly know which option seems more likely...
>Twitter/X was standing up for free speech by fighting back on this censorship, which does not seem constitutional per Brazil’s own laws. But I guess at some point their profits were more important than principles.
X cannot credibly maintain a pretense of standing up for free speech principles when the so-called "free speech absolutist" at the helm of X is curiously quiet about the world's largest censorship machine.
> curiously quiet about the world's largest censorship machine
Why is it a pretense? Is X more free than before? Are they doing more to speak up in defense of free speech? Yes and yes. There’s no pretense around it. You can be a free speech absolutist, speak up in its defense, and also be smart about which battles you fight.
The constitutional right to free speech in Brazil is not an absolute right. In fact, it is a well-known fact to Brazilian legal scholars and practitioners that there are no absolute rights under Brazilian law - every right must be equally respected.
In particular, Brazilian law does not grant freedom of expression for political speech that has clearly defamatory intent, constitutes an insult, makes disparaging judgments or represents denigrating criticism. That may not be the letter of the law, but it is its spirit, as set by precedent and academic literature.
Keep in mind that this specific judge has the backing of the majority of the Supreme Court and, at the very least, the tacit support of congressmen who have the power to impeach him in case of abuses.
He does not have the support from majority of congress..
But congress will not impeach him while there is a left wing president appointing his replacement..
Even tough right wing politicians make a theater of wanting him impeached, and even send requests to impeach him to congress in the back is all negotiated that those impeach requests will not go forward..
> That may not be the letter of the law, but it is its spirit, as set by precedent and academic literature.
The letter of the law matters. It’s not just the freedom of speech by the way. The Brazilian constitution also prohibits secret tribunals, which is what Moraes is doing with censorship under gag orders.
> Keep in mind that this specific judge has the backing of the majority of the Supreme Court and, at the very least, the tacit support of congressmen who have the power to impeach him in case of abuses.
The rest of the federal court is probably too scared of him and the sitting government to speak up. Its’s not a sign of anything.
This is just a political fight to see who's got more power. Elon Musk isn’t really defending free speech — he follows authoritarian orders in other countries [1]. He’s just looking out for his own political interests and turning X into a playground for his political ideology.
And regarding the ban, yeah, there are definitely violations of free speech, just like in a bunch of other democracies, like the U.S., which banned TikTok [2].
No, this is false. Censorship was made legal in India through various changes in law in the last few years. Twitter actually was fighting the Indian government in courts over censorship orders after Musk’s acquisition. They lost the case ultimately, and that was in part because the laws were changed to grant the government those powers explicitly. That’s different from the false narrative that they just cave into orders elsewhere. The censorship performed by Moraes is clearly unconstitutional - it violates numerous parts of the constitution, just within article 5.
No idea why you're getting downvoted. You're right.
The brazilian constitution literally contains the words:
> Any and all censorship of political and artistic nature is prohibited
These accounts were engaged in political speech. The judge ordered their banishment. This is a form of censorship of political nature. Therefore what he did is unconstitutional.
It's a very simple argument that I make every time the topic comes up. Nobody has refuted it to this day. I've had people on this site cite lesser laws, irrelevant laws, appeals to the authority of the judge... But they haven't refuted it.
> These accounts were engaged in political speech. The judge ordered their banishment.
Wrong. The accounts with orders for blocking were pushing a doxxing campaign against police investigators tasked with the January 8 coup attempt investigation. Doxxing/threats probably aren't protected speech anywhere in the world.
And where did you read this? The orders are secret. The accusations are secret. The lawyers involved are secret. I read them when they were published and the only name in there is Alexandre de Moraes.
And I certainly did not witness anything you speak of. I don't remember reading any news of any "doxxing campaign" either. As far as I know, these are just politician accounts.
Someone here on HN once asked who the people named in the court orders were. I found nothing related to what you said when I looked them up on the internet.
Worst guy in there seems to be the guy who told Bolsonaro to order the military to close down the supreme court. Inciting the armed forces against the other powers is a crime but censoring him for it is still unconstitutional. They even censored their wives and daughters.
It is indeed a recognized exception in Brazil. Also, our constitutions grants absolute freedom to communicate facts, while free expression is limited that way.
What is messed up here is how those things happened. It's not even clear if it's about hate speech, because the the censoring orders are themselves secret.
But then, the way Twitter handled things was messed up too.
Expression of thought is free. As brazilians we don't have the right to censor others, we have the right to answer and to be compensated for damages. The original insult is not censored.
I cited all the relevant parts of the constitution in a previous post:
I could not find the exception you spoke of in the constitution.
I agree with you about the irregular and illegal nature of the orders. The judge did not even give the defense lawyers the details. This is not how a civilized nation does things.
What appears to be some historic details concerning the transition from last century's military dictatorship to the democracy.
I still cannot find it.
Anyway...
I'm not exactly a fan of the "it's the court's interpretation" argument. It's an appeal to authority. The authority of these judges is questionable. They aren't real judges whose knowledge of law was tested by competition via concurso público. They're there due to their political connections. When it comes to correct application of the law, I'd sooner trust the judges in the lower courts than the current president's former lawyer.
I'm also not a fan of the word "interpretation". It opens the door to the selective and creative applications of the law. These judges usurped power when they started legislating instead of applying the law as written. I've had actual lawyers complain to my face about cases where these judges just made up their own interpretation instead of doing what the written text says.
I really want to see the article you speak of so that I can at least try to understand the logic they're using.
AFAIK, it's usually based on the item 8: repudiation of terrorism and racism. But this one decision may be about something else, nobody knows.
Those are not details about the transition from the dictatorship. They are expected to be followed by all of the remaining of the text. And yeah, that translation is correct, the actual text doesn't say that at all.
IMO, the entire thing is very bullshitty. There is an entire idea of "legal principles", taken out of context from random places on the Constitution, and the entire Judiciary upholds them, except when they decide not to. That started as soon as the constitution-writing assembly was dismissed.
(Just to add, even our first "democratically elected" president after the new constitution was picked by a decision like that.)
I see it now. Thank you. I don't agree with their interpretation but I see what you're getting at.
> the entire Judiciary upholds them, except when they decide not to
I started smelling bullshit too when I noticed this. These judges are not impartial at all.
> That started as soon as the constitution-writing assembly was dismissed.
How sad...
The popular saying here is "doctors think they're gods, judges know it". So things have always worked that way. Realizing this now as an adult is extremely demoralizing and disillusioning.
Where, in the brazilian constitution, does it say that you can censor people if they "promote violence" in their political speech?
Where is this exception? Because I looked for it and I didn't find it. Every thread about this topic, I ask my fellow brazilians to cite this exception and I have yet to get an actual response. Best I've got was an anti-nazism law which is inferior to the constitution and therefore irrelevant, and should have been declared unconstitutional anyway. Not because I support nazism but because banning nazism, a political ideology, would open the door to banning other political ideologies.
So unless someone explains to me what this "exception" is, I won't be convinced.
It's morbid fascination for me. Up until a few years ago his outward facing persona/"brand" was just a regular tech billionaire occasionally spinning up interesting new stuff. And then almost overnight it's like he had some kind of mental break and started saying and doing completely nonsensical things. Why? What happened? Was he always like this behind the scenes and it was hidden from us or did something happen to him?
a) Twitter was and to a lesser extent still is an important platform for news and information. And his role in furthering misinformation and division has influenced many people.
b) Musk’s unpredictable antics e.g. going to Trump rallys and setting up SuperPAC, being a government contractor and talking about Kamala assassinations is controversial and often newsworthy.
c) Rumors about Musk working with JD Vance and Peter Thiel to effectively run the government on behalf of Trump.
lol. The sad part is that I as non-Brazilian had do tell a Brazilian friend that there was no way the genius would get away with making fun of officials of a country such a Brazil.
I am happy they held their own against a bully such the genius. As for the internal issues in Brazil, I told my friend that Elon doesn’t give a crap about it, those issues are for the people in Brazil to solve.
Elon Musk doesn't have an army, and Brazil does. So the guys with guns win?
China made it clear that boycotting a country doesn't accomplish anything. Nobody supporting Elon on speech is upset that he bluffed and lost... that's life.
The fact that anyone takes what Musk says about free speech at face value is astounding to me.
The number of shenanigans that have occurred on Twitter to make some speech both freer and less free depending on the ideological bent of its operator is so voluminous that it cannot be easily counted.
I don't really know what it is that Musk does on his platform or why he does it. The Twitter-Brazil incident however is about free speech. Brazilian constitution says that any and all censorship of political speech is prohibited. These were political accounts. This judge, a government official, ordered their banishment from the platform. Political censorship.
I’m not familiar with the specifics but a cursory examination indicates that the accounts were publishing libel.
Libel is not now, has never been, and will never be protected speech.
It also seems that Twitter failed on at least one occasion to appoint legal representation and I don’t know if that means counsel or a business point of contact so if this was whatever Brazil’s version of a default judgement is, that makes it even dumber.
Regardless, if someone (in this case Musk) throws their lot in with people who unambiguously attempted a coup d’etat in the name of free speech, they should be examined more critically than usual.
My examination indicated it was all due to "fake news" as determined by these judges. This is the first time I'm encountering the libel/defamation argument. I suppose it's impossible to know since I didn't witness it in real time and everything is secret.
I don't believe what happened was a coup attempt. They occupied Brasília buildings, that's the standard brazillian protest, happened many times before. They wanted the military to seize power, and the military refused. They didn't try to seize power for themselves, they wanted the military to rule over them. That's a valid political position. A coup attempt is the military actually trying something. An actual coup is the military succeeding at it.
> Elon Musk doesn't have an army, and Brazil does.
You're kidding, right? Brazilian army? What a joke.
Besides, Musk is friends with US politicians. Recently showed up in a photo besides Trump himself.
After this Twitter debacle, I've seen news about some republicans proposing laws that would deny the passports of foreign officials which implement censorship. A law that more or less targets these judges. A law that is essentially beneath the notice of most americans. It caused these brazilian judges here to basically throw a temper tantrum in public. "Unacceptable", one of them called it. As if there was even a single thing he could do about it.
Every year the US puts us in a little copyright infringement watchlist, so it's not like they don't care when our actions affect the american economy. I wonder how they feel about a brazilian judge outright stealing millions from american companies via completely arbitrary fines for not complying with orders whose legality is questionable.
>“Although X may not be a top priority for most advertisers in Brazil, the platform needs them more than they need it.”
Really does seem like it came down to this point. Musk hoped Brazilian users would get angry with the government, and they just downloaded bluesky instead. Musk lost a month of Brazilian revenue and gained nothing.
I followed some Brazilians on my (mostly unused) bluesky account. Will be interesting to see if they stick around there, return to twitter, or use both.
Time and again Musk has made money based on the quality of the people around him. He seems to have chased those people off.
> Musk hoped Brazilian users would get angry with the government
It’s like when he claimed he’d “document in great detail” how the boycotting advertisers would kill Twitter, and was smugly confident “Earth” would care. Absolutely delusional. The interviewer even understandably struggled with that line of reasoning.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U_M_uvDChJQ&t=1m39s
> Musk lost a month of Brazilian revenue and gained nothing.
Oh, he lost more than that.
Twitter is big because of the network effect, and the network just got smaller.
This shows the true value of the platform to end users is near zero. If it goes away the world keeps turning.
Is that really true? I think platforms have strong network effects that make migrations to alternatives (like Bluesky) very difficult. However, a government shutdown of that platform, with the power/threat of violence, can break through that network effect by making the platform inaccessible to both sides (the people making tweets and their audience).
Migrations are indeed difficult but not at all impossible it seems. It feels like a tipping point has been reached and activity of what I would call high quality posters is now at such a level on bluesky that I can’t read it all from the relatively few people I follow. Even my own posts are getting traction that they didn’t until very recently. And people seem to be joining now not only because Musk drove them away but because it’s worth it on its own merits.
This shows the true value of the platform to end users is near zero.
Is that really true? I think platforms have strong network effects that make migrations to alternatives (like Bluesky) very difficult.
The network effect has negative value to the user; if the platform went away, everyone would migrate to a better platform, and everyone would be better off. The network effect is an artificial barrier to competition that only benefits the owner of said network, and it only works because collective action is harder than collective inaction.
what does artificial mean here
There’s no technical reason different social media networks couldn’t be made to interoperate. The barriers that keep other platforms from building off of a successful network are largely legal, not natural.
I’m also equating these kinds of network effects with other artificial barriers to competition, like price fixing or mandatory non-compete agreements.
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The influx of Brazilian users to BlueSky was pretty public(1).
> What's the word for posts like these online?
The word is “post”. When someone writes a thing and puts it online with or without a supporting body of evidence they are engaged in posting.
For example you have posited without evidence that there is a need for a special word for a post without evidence. I don’t know if that claim is true or false but it is, undoubtedly, a post
1
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/30/24232561/brazil-x-ban-sen...
> The word is “post”.
Most posts on reddit aren't called posts. They're called comments. And nobody called posts on Twitter "posts" either. They were tweets.
If you go around talking about a website's posts, and the people who use the website call them something else, you're going to sound uninformed.
It is customary to learn the local slang for posts when you’re riding the information superhighway but in a pinch everyone knows what a post is, as it is the product that comes from the process of posters posting.
Sticking to fundamentals can be good when for example a literal insane person tries to tell you that an Xer Xes Xs on X. That’s just not true, nobody believes that wording is right.
Or just "conversation".
In general, I think you're looking for self-fulfilling prophecy. Hearing the prophecy induces behavior that leads to the prophecy coming true.
Although I'm not sure sigmar's observation fits this criteria as it's a discussion of events that already happened, or that it will be disseminated enough to change the future if you consider it as a prediction of future events should some other widely substitute service cross the Brazilian courts.
Ex-Twitter wasn't the first service to get blocked in Brazil. Brazilians know from experience that if the service they use gets blocked, they should look for a similar service that's not blocked, and get on with their life. When the one they used comes back, they often go back, but it probably depends on relative merits. If you're a competing service, it's a great way to get a lot of exposure, but sometimes the load is too much and you leave a poor impression.
What other services were blocked in Brazil? Do you mean the Brazilian government blocks social media often?
I don’t think any comment anyone makes here is going to will anything into existence.
And it’s a fact that Musk lost Brazilian revenue, gained nothing and that some percentage of users would’ve switched to Bluesky, Threads etc. during the block.
uh, which aspect do you think might not be correct? he didn't lose revenue? He didn't hope people would get angry? people didn't download bluesky?
I quoted the expert from the article speaking of twitter's lost revenue and there's a link about people turning to bluesky also in the article.
> uh, which aspect do you think might not be correct? he didn't lose revenue? He didn't hope people would get angry? people didn't download bluesky?
> people didn't download bluesky
1 people? 5 people? 10,000,000 people?
I'm sure some people downloaded Bluesky. What % of Twitter users went to Bluesky and never came back? In the long run, probably not a huge amount?
Everybody wants to pray for the downfall of Elon Musk.
See also: The New Age: SV Politics https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41765734 - Oct 2024 (306 comments)
here we go again: criminal speech != free speech. A lot of, if not all of Alexandre de Moraes's decisions are around a real crime that happened Jan 8 2022 with a real coup attempt in Brazil (federal buildings were severely damaged). Some people pretend this didn't happen and come here and hide arguments behind free speech. These "censored" political influencers are investigated under the umbrella of this major case based on people who potentially had a major impact on influencing very simple people to commit crimes against democracy. Brazilian democracy is still at risk and should get support from digital platforms so we don't end up in a digital wild-wild west. This is still under secrecy investigation and the decisions cannot be judged by people who don't even have access to all the case material to begin with. I'm happy that Elon did the right thing. Hope he keeps collaborating with the law so we all can live in peace.
There was no "coup attempt". There was a protest. Occupying and damaging Brasília buildings is essentially the standard brazilian protest. It's happened before.
You call it a coup because they wanted the military to seize power. They didn't try to seize power for themselves, they wanted the military to rule over them. That's a valid political position. A coup attempt is the military actually trying something. An actual coup is the military succeeding at it. A thousand people with bibles and flags is not a coup or even an attempt at a coup. It's just a protest.
I don't believe he is only talking about the occupation of the parliament, which in my opinion could be considered a coup attempt, although a very disorganized and ultimately failed attempt.
But he is also talking about the leaked documents and dossiers that are being investigated as means to a coup. Organized by some high level military and other influential people, including the previous president.
Edit: more info at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Brazilian_coup_plot
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> Twitter/X was standing up for free speech by fighting back on this censorship, which does not seem constitutional per Brazil’s own laws. But I guess at some point their profits were more important than principles.
If this surprises you, you have not been paying attention. It’s the same ridiculous song and dance every time. He makes a big fuss of free speech and being an absolutist about it, but always caves in fast.
https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-05-24/under-el...
https://www.vice.com/en/article/elon-musk-censors-twitter-in...
Not to mention when he censors stuff just because he doesn’t personally like it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/technology/twitter-substa...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/15/elon-m...
These links don’t make a good case Twitter/X has a publicly stated policy of following the laws in local jurisdictions. They refuse orders that violate the local laws. Turkey has authoritarian censorship so following their local law isn’t controversial. The commonly cited case of India is bizarre since Twitter under Musk literally fought the Indian government in courts over censorship. Unfortunately India legalized certain forms of censorship with new laws that led to them losing the case. That’s why they ended up following the local laws.
Calling Musk hypocritical on free speech is nonsensical. Twitter is far less censored and much more permissive since the acquisition, and that’s a good thing for speech and democracy. The guardian opinion article is just unhinged.
> These links don’t make a good case Twitter/X has a publicly stated policy of following the laws in local jurisdictions. They refuse orders that violate the local laws.
Yet the old Twitter fought and won against far more of these orders in these places, whereas Musks Twitter follows them more readily. Why do you think that is? I see two possibilities:
1) the governments have suddenly improved their approach for these orders, making them harder to win against in court
2) Twitter isn't fighting against these orders as much anymore
I certainly know which option seems more likely...
>Twitter/X was standing up for free speech by fighting back on this censorship, which does not seem constitutional per Brazil’s own laws. But I guess at some point their profits were more important than principles.
X cannot credibly maintain a pretense of standing up for free speech principles when the so-called "free speech absolutist" at the helm of X is curiously quiet about the world's largest censorship machine.
> curiously quiet about the world's largest censorship machine
Why is it a pretense? Is X more free than before? Are they doing more to speak up in defense of free speech? Yes and yes. There’s no pretense around it. You can be a free speech absolutist, speak up in its defense, and also be smart about which battles you fight.
The constitutional right to free speech in Brazil is not an absolute right. In fact, it is a well-known fact to Brazilian legal scholars and practitioners that there are no absolute rights under Brazilian law - every right must be equally respected.
In particular, Brazilian law does not grant freedom of expression for political speech that has clearly defamatory intent, constitutes an insult, makes disparaging judgments or represents denigrating criticism. That may not be the letter of the law, but it is its spirit, as set by precedent and academic literature.
Keep in mind that this specific judge has the backing of the majority of the Supreme Court and, at the very least, the tacit support of congressmen who have the power to impeach him in case of abuses.
He does not have the support from majority of congress..
But congress will not impeach him while there is a left wing president appointing his replacement..
Even tough right wing politicians make a theater of wanting him impeached, and even send requests to impeach him to congress in the back is all negotiated that those impeach requests will not go forward..
That is a true system of checks and balances at play
Congress could impeach him until 2022 - and didn't. From 2016 to 2022, Brazil was governed by right-wing governments.
Oh, who nominated this Justice, was a right-wing president as well.
> That may not be the letter of the law, but it is its spirit, as set by precedent and academic literature.
The letter of the law matters. It’s not just the freedom of speech by the way. The Brazilian constitution also prohibits secret tribunals, which is what Moraes is doing with censorship under gag orders.
> Keep in mind that this specific judge has the backing of the majority of the Supreme Court and, at the very least, the tacit support of congressmen who have the power to impeach him in case of abuses.
The rest of the federal court is probably too scared of him and the sitting government to speak up. Its’s not a sign of anything.
This is just a political fight to see who's got more power. Elon Musk isn’t really defending free speech — he follows authoritarian orders in other countries [1]. He’s just looking out for his own political interests and turning X into a playground for his political ideology.
And regarding the ban, yeah, there are definitely violations of free speech, just like in a bunch of other democracies, like the U.S., which banned TikTok [2].
[1]: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/world/2024/04...
[2]: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/24/1246663779/biden-ban-tiktok-u...
No, this is false. Censorship was made legal in India through various changes in law in the last few years. Twitter actually was fighting the Indian government in courts over censorship orders after Musk’s acquisition. They lost the case ultimately, and that was in part because the laws were changed to grant the government those powers explicitly. That’s different from the false narrative that they just cave into orders elsewhere. The censorship performed by Moraes is clearly unconstitutional - it violates numerous parts of the constitution, just within article 5.
No idea why you're getting downvoted. You're right.
The brazilian constitution literally contains the words:
> Any and all censorship of political and artistic nature is prohibited
These accounts were engaged in political speech. The judge ordered their banishment. This is a form of censorship of political nature. Therefore what he did is unconstitutional.
It's a very simple argument that I make every time the topic comes up. Nobody has refuted it to this day. I've had people on this site cite lesser laws, irrelevant laws, appeals to the authority of the judge... But they haven't refuted it.
> These accounts were engaged in political speech. The judge ordered their banishment.
Wrong. The accounts with orders for blocking were pushing a doxxing campaign against police investigators tasked with the January 8 coup attempt investigation. Doxxing/threats probably aren't protected speech anywhere in the world.
And where did you read this? The orders are secret. The accusations are secret. The lawyers involved are secret. I read them when they were published and the only name in there is Alexandre de Moraes.
And I certainly did not witness anything you speak of. I don't remember reading any news of any "doxxing campaign" either. As far as I know, these are just politician accounts.
Someone here on HN once asked who the people named in the court orders were. I found nothing related to what you said when I looked them up on the internet.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41420849
Worst guy in there seems to be the guy who told Bolsonaro to order the military to close down the supreme court. Inciting the armed forces against the other powers is a crime but censoring him for it is still unconstitutional. They even censored their wives and daughters.
In Portuguese: https://www.uol.com.br/tilt/colunas/carlos-affonso-de-souza/...
Thanks. You're the first person I've encountered who didn't give me the "fake news" angle.
It's not clear to me that this kind of doxxing is actually a crime in Brazil though.
The banned accounts promoted violence against political opponents, which is generally an exception from protected speech.
It is indeed a recognized exception in Brazil. Also, our constitutions grants absolute freedom to communicate facts, while free expression is limited that way.
What is messed up here is how those things happened. It's not even clear if it's about hate speech, because the the censoring orders are themselves secret.
But then, the way Twitter handled things was messed up too.
Expression of thought is free. As brazilians we don't have the right to censor others, we have the right to answer and to be compensated for damages. The original insult is not censored.
I cited all the relevant parts of the constitution in a previous post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41599925
I could not find the exception you spoke of in the constitution.
I agree with you about the irregular and illegal nature of the orders. The judge did not even give the defense lawyers the details. This is not how a civilized nation does things.
> I could not find the exception you spoke of in the constitution.
It's usually based on the article 4°. And yeah, I do agree it pushes quite a lot from the literal text.
But anyway, it's the courts interpretation since the 90s. But you are right to question it.
Can you please cite and copy the exact text of the constitution which bases this?
I use this english translation of the constitution for citations:
https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017
Every point in the text is linkable.
Searching the constitution's text for article 4 gives me these:
https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017#s...
An enumeration of the republic's objectives in the context of its international relations.
https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017#s...
What appears to be some historic details concerning the transition from last century's military dictatorship to the democracy.
I still cannot find it.
Anyway...
I'm not exactly a fan of the "it's the court's interpretation" argument. It's an appeal to authority. The authority of these judges is questionable. They aren't real judges whose knowledge of law was tested by competition via concurso público. They're there due to their political connections. When it comes to correct application of the law, I'd sooner trust the judges in the lower courts than the current president's former lawyer.
I'm also not a fan of the word "interpretation". It opens the door to the selective and creative applications of the law. These judges usurped power when they started legislating instead of applying the law as written. I've had actual lawyers complain to my face about cases where these judges just made up their own interpretation instead of doing what the written text says.
I really want to see the article you speak of so that I can at least try to understand the logic they're using.
AFAIK, it's usually based on the item 8: repudiation of terrorism and racism. But this one decision may be about something else, nobody knows.
Those are not details about the transition from the dictatorship. They are expected to be followed by all of the remaining of the text. And yeah, that translation is correct, the actual text doesn't say that at all.
IMO, the entire thing is very bullshitty. There is an entire idea of "legal principles", taken out of context from random places on the Constitution, and the entire Judiciary upholds them, except when they decide not to. That started as soon as the constitution-writing assembly was dismissed.
(Just to add, even our first "democratically elected" president after the new constitution was picked by a decision like that.)
> item 8: repudiation of terrorism and racism
I see it now. Thank you. I don't agree with their interpretation but I see what you're getting at.
> the entire Judiciary upholds them, except when they decide not to
I started smelling bullshit too when I noticed this. These judges are not impartial at all.
> That started as soon as the constitution-writing assembly was dismissed.
How sad...
The popular saying here is "doctors think they're gods, judges know it". So things have always worked that way. Realizing this now as an adult is extremely demoralizing and disillusioning.
Where, in the brazilian constitution, does it say that you can censor people if they "promote violence" in their political speech?
Where is this exception? Because I looked for it and I didn't find it. Every thread about this topic, I ask my fellow brazilians to cite this exception and I have yet to get an actual response. Best I've got was an anti-nazism law which is inferior to the constitution and therefore irrelevant, and should have been declared unconstitutional anyway. Not because I support nazism but because banning nazism, a political ideology, would open the door to banning other political ideologies.
So unless someone explains to me what this "exception" is, I won't be convinced.
This has nothing to do with political speech..
Article 286 from the penal code prohibit to incite the practice of crimes.
Any speech, political or otherwise, that incite violence toward another is a crime..
Just to point, but this is usually applied with the article 4 of the Constitution. Otherwise the law would be plainly invalid.
Yes, and the punishment for that is either a fine or imprisonment for up to 6 months.
Where does it say the judge can censor it?
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It's morbid fascination for me. Up until a few years ago his outward facing persona/"brand" was just a regular tech billionaire occasionally spinning up interesting new stuff. And then almost overnight it's like he had some kind of mental break and started saying and doing completely nonsensical things. Why? What happened? Was he always like this behind the scenes and it was hidden from us or did something happen to him?
a) Twitter was and to a lesser extent still is an important platform for news and information. And his role in furthering misinformation and division has influenced many people.
b) Musk’s unpredictable antics e.g. going to Trump rallys and setting up SuperPAC, being a government contractor and talking about Kamala assassinations is controversial and often newsworthy.
c) Rumors about Musk working with JD Vance and Peter Thiel to effectively run the government on behalf of Trump.
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I do wish he would've just pulled out of Brazil on a principle basis, but I can't blame him business-wise for doing this.
The common trick is to do these things while there are more interesting things that will grab people's attention.
it's a complicated issue, I just want twitter back to keep with the current papers.
lol. The sad part is that I as non-Brazilian had do tell a Brazilian friend that there was no way the genius would get away with making fun of officials of a country such a Brazil.
I am happy they held their own against a bully such the genius. As for the internal issues in Brazil, I told my friend that Elon doesn’t give a crap about it, those issues are for the people in Brazil to solve.
Elon Musk doesn't have an army, and Brazil does. So the guys with guns win?
China made it clear that boycotting a country doesn't accomplish anything. Nobody supporting Elon on speech is upset that he bluffed and lost... that's life.
> Nobody supporting Elon on speech
The fact that anyone takes what Musk says about free speech at face value is astounding to me.
The number of shenanigans that have occurred on Twitter to make some speech both freer and less free depending on the ideological bent of its operator is so voluminous that it cannot be easily counted.
I don't really know what it is that Musk does on his platform or why he does it. The Twitter-Brazil incident however is about free speech. Brazilian constitution says that any and all censorship of political speech is prohibited. These were political accounts. This judge, a government official, ordered their banishment from the platform. Political censorship.
I’m not familiar with the specifics but a cursory examination indicates that the accounts were publishing libel.
Libel is not now, has never been, and will never be protected speech.
It also seems that Twitter failed on at least one occasion to appoint legal representation and I don’t know if that means counsel or a business point of contact so if this was whatever Brazil’s version of a default judgement is, that makes it even dumber.
Regardless, if someone (in this case Musk) throws their lot in with people who unambiguously attempted a coup d’etat in the name of free speech, they should be examined more critically than usual.
My examination indicated it was all due to "fake news" as determined by these judges. This is the first time I'm encountering the libel/defamation argument. I suppose it's impossible to know since I didn't witness it in real time and everything is secret.
I don't believe what happened was a coup attempt. They occupied Brasília buildings, that's the standard brazillian protest, happened many times before. They wanted the military to seize power, and the military refused. They didn't try to seize power for themselves, they wanted the military to rule over them. That's a valid political position. A coup attempt is the military actually trying something. An actual coup is the military succeeding at it.
Nobody is pointing a gun at him, they just told him that he couldn't do business there until he was compliant with the legal requirements.
I am so sick of people hyperbolizing everything.
> I am so sick of people hyperbolizing everything.
Ironic
Yes, I am using the same rhetorical technique ironically to point out how annoying it is.
> Nobody supporting Elon on speech is upset that he bluffed and lost..
I mean, is there anything Elon could do that would upset Elon supporters? This sentence is basically a tautology.
> Elon Musk doesn't have an army, and Brazil does.
You're kidding, right? Brazilian army? What a joke.
Besides, Musk is friends with US politicians. Recently showed up in a photo besides Trump himself.
After this Twitter debacle, I've seen news about some republicans proposing laws that would deny the passports of foreign officials which implement censorship. A law that more or less targets these judges. A law that is essentially beneath the notice of most americans. It caused these brazilian judges here to basically throw a temper tantrum in public. "Unacceptable", one of them called it. As if there was even a single thing he could do about it.
Every year the US puts us in a little copyright infringement watchlist, so it's not like they don't care when our actions affect the american economy. I wonder how they feel about a brazilian judge outright stealing millions from american companies via completely arbitrary fines for not complying with orders whose legality is questionable.