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.
Out of curiosity, would you feel differently about this if it had been a print newsletter or physical book publisher that was printing Nazi propaganda that got shutdown because they refused to stop printing Nazi propaganda?
If so, what’s the substantive difference?
If not, are you affirming banning people from publishing books based on ideological grounds?
Obviously banning books is bad, but obviously Nazis are bad, and that’s a hard square to circle.
Except the-service-formerly-known-as-Twitter isn’t being “shut down”, it’s being stopped at the Brazilian border. This actually happens all the time with print publications in many countries that don’t take Free Speech to toxic extremes—they get confiscated at the border by Customs officials. It’s less common these days than it used to be, but I’d bet that there are still instances of fringe porn and unapologetic Nazi propaganda being seized.
X-Twitter is free to go about its business in the country in which it’s based and in any other country where it hasn’t been banned, just not in Brazil, until and unless it decides to comply with the courts there. Which it is free to do at any time.
I don’t understand your statement, printing Nazi propaganda is a crime so yeah it will be shutdown for committing a crime, doesn’t matter if in the odds day they are printing school books.
And I realize this isn’t in the US, obviously. But I think that the idea that the government shouldn’t be able to ban people from saying things, or compel them to say things, is so baked into the American zeitgeist (of which I am a member), that it feels wrong in a fundamental moral sense when it happens.
It’s the old, “I don’t agree with anything that man says, but I’ll defend to the death his right to say it,” thing.
People can say whatever they want but they will suffer the consequences of it, you can not make death threats to people, you can not make defamation like in the case of the female Olympic athlete. If the consequences for these acts are only monetary so the law only works for poor people.
To be clear, harassment and defamation are crimes in the US as well. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean that you can harm people with your speech with impunity. It’s a prohibition on the government from meddling with political speech, especially that of people who are detractors of the government.
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.
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?
First: same club as EUA right? EUA banned TikTok so yeah everyone is in the same boat right now.
Second: The move with Starlink was: Musk has a debt with Brazil, he didn’t paid the fines so the judges decide that they’ll freeze the money from Starlink because they understand that both companies are on the same corporate group
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.
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.
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.
I can see both sides on this one I think?
Out of curiosity, would you feel differently about this if it had been a print newsletter or physical book publisher that was printing Nazi propaganda that got shutdown because they refused to stop printing Nazi propaganda?
If so, what’s the substantive difference? If not, are you affirming banning people from publishing books based on ideological grounds?
Obviously banning books is bad, but obviously Nazis are bad, and that’s a hard square to circle.
Except the-service-formerly-known-as-Twitter isn’t being “shut down”, it’s being stopped at the Brazilian border. This actually happens all the time with print publications in many countries that don’t take Free Speech to toxic extremes—they get confiscated at the border by Customs officials. It’s less common these days than it used to be, but I’d bet that there are still instances of fringe porn and unapologetic Nazi propaganda being seized.
X-Twitter is free to go about its business in the country in which it’s based and in any other country where it hasn’t been banned, just not in Brazil, until and unless it decides to comply with the courts there. Which it is free to do at any time.
I don’t understand your statement, printing Nazi propaganda is a crime so yeah it will be shutdown for committing a crime, doesn’t matter if in the odds day they are printing school books.
Printing Nazi propaganda isn’t illegal in the US.
And I realize this isn’t in the US, obviously. But I think that the idea that the government shouldn’t be able to ban people from saying things, or compel them to say things, is so baked into the American zeitgeist (of which I am a member), that it feels wrong in a fundamental moral sense when it happens.
It’s the old, “I don’t agree with anything that man says, but I’ll defend to the death his right to say it,” thing.
Thank god is not the US.
People can say whatever they want but they will suffer the consequences of it, you can not make death threats to people, you can not make defamation like in the case of the female Olympic athlete. If the consequences for these acts are only monetary so the law only works for poor people.
To be clear, harassment and defamation are crimes in the US as well. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean that you can harm people with your speech with impunity. It’s a prohibition on the government from meddling with political speech, especially that of people who are detractors of the government.
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.
First: same club as EUA right? EUA banned TikTok so yeah everyone is in the same boat right now.
Second: The move with Starlink was: Musk has a debt with Brazil, he didn’t paid the fines so the judges decide that they’ll freeze the money from Starlink because they understand that both companies are on the same corporate group
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.
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.
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
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.
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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.