Elon Musk-controlled satellite internet provider Starlink has told Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel it will not comply with a court order to block social media platform X in the country until its local accounts are unfrozen.
Anatel confirmed the information to Reuters on Monday after its head Carlos Baigorri told Globo TV it had received a note from Starlink, which has more than 200,000 customers in Brazil, and passed it onto Brazil’s top court.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X, which is also owned by billionaire Musk, for lacking a legal representative in Brazil.
The move also led to the freezing of Starlink’s bank accounts in Brazil. Starlink is a unit of Musk-led rocket company SpaceX. The billionaire responded to the account block by calling Moraes a “dictator.”
Shoot them down baby!
Why does the weird one think that he should have more power than a government?
His life experiences? Having that much money and power really fucks with someone’s perceptions of the world.
He absolutely shouldn’t, but isn’t this just a dick swinging contest by both Brazil and Musk?
I haven’t been following it but banning an entire website because they don’t have a ‘legal representative’ in your country sounds bizarre.
It is when the law says that for a company to operate in Brazil it has to have an appointed legal representative, and you close down your offices and refuse to re-appoint one when the judge demands you to.
Musk entered a “No pants no service” restaurant, took his pants off, was told to put them back on and refused, and is now surprised he gets no service.Shut down the offices and evacuated employees when threatened with arrest. There’s a whole lot more to this story…
I don’t know what you thought I said to begin your comment with ‘it is’, because if you’re agreeing it’s a dick swinging contest, then the rest of your comment seems strange.
Anyway, fair enough - like I said, I have not been following it.
I think that’s a bit reductive.
It’s fair enough to expect a large company to have a rep to attend court if they want to do business in your country.
If they refuse then it becomes a “rule of law” situation - even if it’s a dumb law, you can’t have a multinational disregard the court’s instructions.
Because obviously the benevolent billionaire will do so much more good to the world than an evil government specifically elected by the will of the people. (/s)
I’m on side with Elon and Radio Caroline in this issue.
He’s not broadcasting from inside Brazil’s borders, so the regulators can get stuffed.
The ground antennas that enable the service totally broadcast from inside Brazil.
They can disable them, they can jam them too.
I think the next logical step for Brazil is to revoke a license to operate in that spectrum, rendering all user terminals illegal.
Money and racism
I’m scared of the day Amazon realises they actually do have more power than the government.
Amazon may have more power than some tiny countries, but not the US govt as your comment would imply
And starlink also gets banned from the country
Tesla next?
How would you do that though? The whole point is the signal is coming from a satellite
Need to ship receivers to customers and those could be seized at customs if they’re illegal radio equipment.
Then, new customers would need a VPN to sign up, and old customers might have trouble renewing with local payment methods
Why bother when you can just prevent Starlink from collecting any money?
Starlink’s bank accounts are frozen. Musk loves money more than providing service. I doubt he’ll provide the service for free.
the problem is starlink is actually a good thing, providing decent internet access to places that can’t get it otherwise. I think the thing to target is the clear collusion going on between companies in ostensibly unrelated industries to pressure a government into reversing a penalty on one of them.
Nah, Starlink itself is bad, the intention is good.
what specifically is “bad” about it? I understand people are concerned about space junk, but it seems worth the benefit to me.
It’s wrecking astronomy already and we aren’t even at the peak of satellite constellations.
If I had to choose between global high speed internet access, and ground based astronomy, I’d pick the Internet every time. I’d completely blot out the sky forever if that’s what it took.
We don’t need ground-based astronomy to learn about the universe, I’d rather encourage more space-based astronomy. Or build some observatories on the moon if you really want to build on a solid space body.
However, Starlink is a for profit company run by Elon Musk. I don’t really want them doing it, because they’re not going to provide unlimited global Internet to everyone. So as the guy said, the idea is good, but Starlink is bad, although it is currently the only such option.
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Clearly you have no idea what you’re talking about. Upgrading fiber networks brings access to extremely rural communities? Upgrade what? There is no fiber cross crossing Brazil you useful idiot
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In a lot of cases I would agree with you, but laying fiber optic cable through the Amazon in order to connect remote settlements is not feasible, starlink really does have a good use case there.
And ocean communication.
It’s amazingly clear none of these people have ever tried to use any of the existing Geostationary satellite data networks.
They are slow as shit. Not just by modern standards, by any standards. HughesNet is one of the remaining satellite Internet providers.
$50/mo gives you 50Mbps speeds, 100GB of “Priority Data”, whatever the fuck that is (probably your 50Mbps data, then it slows). And that price is only for a year, then it is $75/mo. They also love to tout a 30ms latency somehow, but that’s just a damned lie. Latency for a Geostationary satellite is around 500ms, or roughly the speed of light because that’s physics. So I have no idea where they think they’re getting 30ms, unless that’s only the additional latency they’re claiming AFTER it bounces off the satellite and reaches the ground to be routed to the internet on their end.
Starlink is a constellation of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites, not geostationary satellites. That means that the ground station (i.e. subscriber equipment) talks to one satellite as it comes into view, and over time that satellite moves across the sky, and they switch to another satellite. This means the latency is highly variable as the distance changes, but at its lowest is much lower than a geostationary satellite since it is far closer.
clear collusion
It’s less so “collusion” than it is “a billionaire brat using their obscene wealth to strong arm their way out of any accountability”. We can’t consider starlink a “good thing” because it will always be part of that, and any group or government relying on it to any degree should take note.
He really thinks he is above the law.
Why can’t musk get stranded in space like these astronauts at ISS. We would all be better off.
He’s good for absolutely nothing in this world. The only true altruistic path for him would be euthanasia and donating his water to the tribe.
Well, technically… he is- until proven otherwise. But so far, it hasn’t happened.
Innocent until proven otherwise?
I think you get something mixed up here. Innocence is not the same as being above the law. Innocence means you didn’t do anything outside the law.
And it’s a fact, that Starlink and X defied orders of the Supreme Court. I wonder what you think must be proven here?
I think you got something mixed up here. I never said he was innocent. I said he is above the law until proven otherwise. The guy hasn’t suffered a consequence for a single action.
Until he does- he IS above the law.
This is literally a thead about how brazil is blocking X and froze starlinks accounts and assets.
And my comment was in response to something different. You’re free to move along unless you can show that you’re authorized to police the comments in this thread.
For fucks sake, YOU replied directly to MY comment.
Please move on yourself, if you don’t want replies from people you talked at
Right. My comment was in response to something YOU said about his accountability. Brazil is slapping his wrist. Nothing more.
This is NOT him facing consequences. This is not accountability.
How about you spend more time trying to understand what people are saying, and less time being butthurt because you think they’re disagreeing with you.
Yeah… I’m still waiting on the orange one to face some consequences…
He’s arguing that it’s illegal because they are separate entities.
The order to block Twitter went to all Brazilian ISPs, and Starlink is the only one that didn’t comply on Saturday. So the escalation stems from the disregard of an order that everyone was required to obey, but the intertwined nature of both companies being controlled by Musk is both part of the reason why SpaceX would even consider not complying with local law in a country it operates in, and why the Brazilian courts seem to be willing to aggressively enforce their own orders.
So the escalation stems from the disregard of an order that everyone was required to obey
You’ve got it backwards. Right in the article, it notes “The decision to freeze Starlink’s accounts stems from a separate dispute over unpaid fines X was ordered to pay due to its failure to turn over some documents.” The escalation of Starlink not complying comes from that, not the other way around.
ut the intertwined nature of both companies being controlled by Musk is both part of the reason why SpaceX would even consider not complying with local law in a country it operates in
Again, seemingly backwards. It was the government of Brazil that used their “intertwined nature” to freeze Starlink accounts, and Musk has, in turned, used that “intertwine nature” as leverage.
To be clear, I hate defending Musk, but I don’t see why it makes sense to freeze Startlink accounts if it’s X that hasn’t paid the fines. Can they go after any company that he owns stock in? Can they start seizing Teslas? How about MS infrastructure, if he holds some ownership in that company too? I’m just not sure the government of Brazil is on the right side of this, and not simply using their power to punish Musk. If people said “I don’t really care and I’m glad they are holding his feet to the fire” that would be one thing, but people are arguing that it’s actually Musk who is doing all of this, while it appears that it’s actually the Brazilian government that “intertwined” them and Musk just responding in kind.
I wonder if he would have complied with the court order if the Brazil government hadn’t done this, if so then yeah, I guess that’s not shitty.
My gut says he would have started drama regardless.
The escalation of Starlink not complying comes from that, not the other way around.
I’ve looked closer (at other articles, too). You’re right - the freezing of the SpaceX accounts came from the same order that ordered that Twitter be blocked, and before SpaceX announced it would refuse to comply.
The proper thing to do is to recognize the legally distinct personhood of SpaceX, which isn’t part of Twitter, even if Twitter/X itself is wrong on the law.
Supreme Court ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X
If Starlink refuses to comply or hinders others to comply, they are in contempt to the Supreme Court orders.
As long as this order is within the law, it shouldn’t matter if Starlink and X are connected or not.And even if they are in orbit “above” the law, the ruling is only about their operating in brazil not about the satellite itself. And their operations within the country of Brazil do have to comply with Brazilian law and courts.
The decision to freeze Starlink’s accounts stems from a separate dispute over unpaid fines X was ordered to pay due to its failure to turn over some documents.
The issue of freezing star link accounts predates this shut down and was the result of some issue with x.
I’ve got no love for musk, but if the government is going after starlink because they have issues with x, it’s hard for me to disagree with him when he calls this dictator like. And thus it’s hard for me to fault him for using it as leverage.
I wonder what would happen if a Brazilian company failed to comply with a US court order.
They’d be getting ready for some FREEDOM!!!
There would already be boots on the ground.
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As of 2024-09-03T22:10:25.545Z, Starlink is now complying with Brazil’s X ban [1].
References
- “Starlink says it will block X in Brazil”. Emma Roth. The Verge. Published: 2024-09-03T22:10:25.545Z. Accessed: 2024-09-04T04:17Z. https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/3/24235204/starlink-block-x-brazil-comply-elon-musk.
“We immediately initiated legal proceedings in the Brazilian Supreme Court explaining the gross illegality of this order and asking the Court to unfreeze our assets,” Starlink says in a post on X. “Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing of our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil.”
- “Starlink says it will block X in Brazil”. Emma Roth. The Verge. Published: 2024-09-03T22:10:25.545Z. Accessed: 2024-09-04T04:17Z. https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/3/24235204/starlink-block-x-brazil-comply-elon-musk.
Lol, then I guess they can provide that access for free, indefinitely, all for just making sure they keep 200K (max) people in Brazil on Xitter.
If I worked for Starlink in Brazil, I’d be on a plane visiting friends outside the country right now. I’m sure an order to arrest EVERYONE who works for Starlink is being drafted right now.
If Starlink is connected to any infrastructure inside Brazil, I suspect that’s about to go dark. What the Brazilian authorities need is access to Starlink’s internal admin network that controls EVERYTHING. Because Melon Husk is to stupid to pipeline infrastructure for each country. I’ll bet it’s all shared at some level. I doubt local IT person would risk jail for them and their families or “extended renditioning” to extract access to those networks to shut them down.
The comments here are weird TBH. No, Brazil will not start shooting down satellites. It can just simply outlaw and sanction Starlink, stop anyone from paying Starlink for their internet subscription, and have peeps go around and confiscate ground stations.
Also, they can just go and ask the US to help enforce their ruling, telling them “do you want to be friends with us or Musky boi?”
Easier than than just freeze musks money in brazil
Unfortunately, the US is now fully reliant on SpaceX for access to space now that they decided to rely on corporate spacecraft rather than building our own and Boeing has proven themselves unreliable since that change was made, and now that they finally have a craft they ended up stranding astronauts on the space station until SpaceX can rescue them due to defects. Plus we can’t use Russia like we did after the shuttle program ended but corporate space travel wasn’t there yet. And SpaceX isn’t publicly traded to where it might be possible that enough investors could pressure Musk to cave.
So I doubt anything will come of it. Brazil will rattle their sabers. Musk will stand his ground, and the US will stay on Musk’s side while pretending as much as possible to be staying out of it.
Is there precedent for the US government just flat out nationalizing a company like SpaceX?
