A Brazilian Supreme Court panel has unanimously upheld the decision of one of its justices to block billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X nationwide.
Genuinely asking how Elon Musk unilaterally defying a unanimous court order is losing the “last scrap of pretense at democratic rule of law.” Seems like more of the same old oligarchy games like it always has been.
It is a court order for censorship. You may not like what is said on that platform, but it is still straight up suppression of anything the government defines as dangerous. If you do not consider that a problematic move just because you agree with that government for now, you are in for a nasty surprise.
If Brazil wants to shut down the service because of that: That is their right. Welcome to the same club as North Korea, China, and Iran. But what is that move with Starlink? When and where has it become acceptable to seize assets of a company because you have beef with one of its shareholders? What does this signal to other international activities in Brazil?
There are standards whereby you can determine something is harmful and not covered by free speech. Like calling for violence against a demographic minority. That’s not either censorship or in bad faith, but upholding standards for a civilized society.
It’s basically no different than the fact that you are not allowed to kill people in the street.
The law in non-compliance is an attempt to shut down misinformation related to an election where x refused to appoint a court representative. Rather than fight the battle in court they chose to just shut down brazil changing x from a brazil represented company to basically a purely foreign company similar to RT in the US.
Like there’s a difference between showing up to court to fight for free speech and shutting down your offices so you can’t argue your case.
suppression of anything the government defines as dangerous
That’s kind of one of the points of having a government…
When it’s applied to banning toxic chemicals or violence, that’s the same thing happening but you just wouldn’t call it censorship.
When I first learned about it, it kind of seems like school bullying or something criminal. “Give me 50000 if you want to keep operating”. It’s kind of funny, but it is also kind of sad. Anyway, the decision has it geopolitical importance.
It is not the government defining something as dangerous. It‘s the democratically elected parliament, the democratically elected government and the then appointed judges which rule based on democratically created laws. And if the society comes to the conclusion that hate speech, defamation and lies are not covered by free speech they can of course shut down X and co. And the law applies also to billionaires.
Care to expand on this?
Genuinely asking how Elon Musk unilaterally defying a unanimous court order is losing the “last scrap of pretense at democratic rule of law.” Seems like more of the same old oligarchy games like it always has been.
There are standards whereby you can determine something is harmful and not covered by free speech. Like calling for violence against a demographic minority. That’s not either censorship or in bad faith, but upholding standards for a civilized society.
It’s basically no different than the fact that you are not allowed to kill people in the street.
Funnily enough, Twitter is not banned in Iran.
when people volunteer their confessions, it probably makes jailing, torturing or execution easier. Xitter is a helpful service for the mullahs
Its a shutdown for non-compliance with a law.
The law in non-compliance is an attempt to shut down misinformation related to an election where x refused to appoint a court representative. Rather than fight the battle in court they chose to just shut down brazil changing x from a brazil represented company to basically a purely foreign company similar to RT in the US.
Like there’s a difference between showing up to court to fight for free speech and shutting down your offices so you can’t argue your case.
That’s kind of one of the points of having a government… When it’s applied to banning toxic chemicals or violence, that’s the same thing happening but you just wouldn’t call it censorship.
When I first learned about it, it kind of seems like school bullying or something criminal. “Give me 50000 if you want to keep operating”. It’s kind of funny, but it is also kind of sad. Anyway, the decision has it geopolitical importance.
It is not the government defining something as dangerous. It‘s the democratically elected parliament, the democratically elected government and the then appointed judges which rule based on democratically created laws. And if the society comes to the conclusion that hate speech, defamation and lies are not covered by free speech they can of course shut down X and co. And the law applies also to billionaires.