Brazil vs. Twitter

Luana Maria Benedito (via Hacker News):

Media platform X said on Saturday it would close its operations in Brazil “effective immediately” due to what it called “censorship orders” by Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes.

X Global Government Affairs:

Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders. He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions.

Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard, the Brazilian public not being informed about these orders and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process.

As a result, to protect the safety of our staff, we have made the decision to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately.

The X service remains available to the people of Brazil.

Michael Shellenberger (in April):

They:

• illegally demanded that Twitter reveal personal details about Twitter users who used hashtags he did not like;
• demanded access to Twitter’s internal data, in violation of Twitter policy;
• sought to censor, unilaterally, Twitter posts by sitting members of Brazil’s Congress;
• sought to weaponize Twitter’s content moderation policies against supporters of then-president @jairbolsonaro

Previously:

• VPN Apps in Brazilian App Store
• Archive of the Twitter Files

Update (2024-08-21): Brian Mier (via Simone Manganelli):

Days later, Brazil’s former secretary of digital rights, Estela Aranha, unmasked the fraud. Confronting Shellenberger publicly on Twitter, she demonstrated that he had cut and pasted together paragraphs selected from the company’s internal communications on a variety of different issues to create a false narrative (FAIR.org, 4/18/24). The paragraph about criminal charges referred not to de Moraes, but to GAECO, the Sao Paulo district attorney’s office’s organized crime unit, which pressed charges after Twitter refused to turn over user data on a leader of Brazil’s largest cocaine-trafficking organization. Shellenberger apologized in Portuguese, admitting he had no proof that de Moraes had pressed charges against Twitter, then left Brazil.

The eight-page congressional report parroted Musk and Shellenberger’s criticism of the deplatforming of Twitter users, and claimed that ordering the removal of specific posts constitutes “censorship.” Surprisingly, for a report authored by a committee chaired by inner-circle Trump ally Jim Jordan, the most cited journalistic source for the document is the New York Times.

The Times is generally not sympathetic to Musk or Jordan, so this could be interpreted as if even the Times agrees with them, there must be something to this. However, Mier casts doubt on the Times’s reporting.

It is disputed precisely what Twitter was being asked to do, and I don’t have the time or expertise to dig into the claims and counterclaims. However, it does seem to be the case that Twitter received a secret order, that its local staff was threatened, and that it’s leaving Brazil.

Update (2024-09-06): Sophia com PH:

[Moraes] was the one who ordered the arrest for all of the insurgents and the one that, and this is important, ordered Elon to surrender the names and IP addresses of every Brazilian X account who used X to organize this coup attempt.

[…]

As such The Brazilian Constitution written after the end of the dictatorship in 1988 is very strict in regard to treason and coup attempts and such. So yes! By Brazilian laws Elon would have to comply and give this information to Xandão or else he would be obstructing justice.

X Global Government Affairs:

Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes will order X to be shut down in Brazil – simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents. These enemies include a duly elected Senator and a 16-year-old girl, among others.

When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts. Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored.

[…]

We are absolutely not insisting that other countries have the same free speech laws as the United States. The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that.

In the days to come, we will publish all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings in the interest of transparency.

Tiago Rogero (Hacker News, Slashdot, Nick Heer):

He gave Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency 24 hours to enforce the decision. Once notified, the agency must pass the order on to the more than 20,000 broadband internet providers in the country, each of which must block X.

Trey Alston (Hacker News):

“It is urgent to regulate social networks,” [attorney general Jorge Messias] wrote. “We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law, failing to comply with court orders and threatening our authorities.”

Mike Masonic:

The main argument is that it’s pretty clear that he is violating Brazilian law. First off, it involves disobeying orders coming from the Brazilian Supreme Court, which people insist must be obeyed. Also, the law in Brazil requires that to operate an internet service, you have to have an employee in the country.

But, here’s the thing: as we’ve argued for years, standing up and fighting back against unjust laws is what standing up for free speech and civil liberties is all about.

For example, lots of countries are now pushing for these laws that require internet companies to have local employees in order to arrest them if the company doesn’t do the government’s bidding. We have long pointed out how dangerous this is, as they are effectively “hostage laws” that enable authoritarian countries to put undue pressure on private companies.

[…]

When Twitter refused to pull down those tweets, the Modi government first threatened to jail Indian Twitter employees. Later, it raided Twitter’s offices in India. India threatened to ban Twitter in the country, and some politicians pushed Indians to move to a local competitor, Koo. Twitter fought back against those demands, and many people cheered them on for standing up for free speech and against undue pressure.

Mike Masnick:

In the battle between Elon Musk and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the biggest losers are Brazilians. They are now at risk of being stripped of VPNs while facing massive fines if they somehow get around a countrywide ban on ExTwitter.

[…]

As we noted, there was nothing particularly new about the second point. Brazil has done this in the past with WhatsApp and Telegram.

Jack Nicas and Kate Conger:

X began to go dark across Brazil on Saturday after the nation’s Supreme Court blocked the social network because its owner, Elon Musk, refused to comply with court orders to suspend certain accounts.

[…]

In a highly unusual move, Justice Moraes also said that any person in Brazil who tried to still use X via common privacy software called a virtual private network, or VPN, could be fined nearly $9,000 a day.

[…]

Justice Moraes also froze the finances of a second Musk business in Brazil, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite-internet service, to try to collect $3 million in fines he has levied against X. Starlink — which has recently exploded in popularity in Brazil, with more than 250,000 customers — said that it planned to fight the order and would make its service free in Brazil if necessary.

Starlink:

Earlier this week we received an order from Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice @alexandre de Moraes that freezes Starlink’s finances and prevents Starlink from conducting financial transactions in that country.

This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied—unconstitutionally—against X. It was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil.

Jack Nicas (Hacker News):

On Sunday, Starlink informed Brazil’s telecom agency, Anatel, that it would not block X until Brazilian officials released Starlink’s frozen assets, Anatel’s president, Carlos Baigorri, said in an interview broadcast by the Brazilian outlet Globo News.

Mr. Baigorri said he had informed Justice Moraes “so that he can take the measures he deems appropriate.” Mr. Baigorri said his agency could revoke Starlink’s license to operate in Brazil, which would “hypothetically” prevent the company from offering connections to its Brazilian customers.

Yet Starlink could try to continue to provide service in Brazil without a license, though that would violate Brazilian law.

[…]

Mr. Musk has called the financial sanctions on Starlink “absolutely illegal,” saying that Justice Moraes was punishing shareholders of SpaceX for the actions of X, a separate company. Mr. Musk said he owned 40 percent of SpaceX.

Pascale Davies with AP (Hacker News):

Brazil’s Supreme Court voted unanimously on Monday to uphold the decision by one of its justices to ban Elon Musk’s social media platform, X.

Starlink:

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.

Brendan Carr:

Brazil’s decisions to ban X and freeze Starlink assets are part of a growing crackdown on free speech. But they also violates Brazil’s own laws.

Today, I wrote my regulatory counterparts in Brazil to address these unlawful actions.

[…]

The serious and apparently unlawful actions against X and Starlink cannot be squared with the principles of reciprocity, rule of law, and independence that have served as the foundation of the FCC and ANATEL relationship and the basis for reciprocal foreign investment.

Update (2024-09-17): Julia Shapero (via Hacker News):

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court unfroze the assets of Elon Musk’s satellite communications company Starlink and social platform X after 18.35 million reais, about $3.3 million, was transferred to the government’s coffers.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the unblocking of Starlink and X’s bank accounts and assets after the funds had been transferred, covering X’s fines for noncompliance, according to a press release Friday.

Some 7.28 million reais, about $1.3 million, was transferred from X, while 11.07 million reais, about $1.99 million, was transferred from Starlink on the judge’s orders.

Is Starlink paying part of X’s fine or was it separately fined for something else?

See also: Alexandre Files.

Update (2024-09-20): Lora Kolodny (via Hacker News):

X faces steep daily fines in Brazil for allegedly evading a ban on the service there, according to a statement from the country’s supreme court Thursday.

The fines imposed by Brazil’s supreme court amount to $5 million in Brazilian reals, about $920,000, a day. The court said it would continue to impose “joint liability” on Starlink, the satellite internet service owned and operated by SpaceX, Musk’s aerospace venture.

[…]

Musk and X may be in the process of complying with Brazil’s takedown orders as well. Correio Braziliense, a Brazilian publication, reported on Wednesday that X has started blocking accounts as per suspension orders issued by the country’s supreme court.

[…]

Brazil’s national telecommunication agency, Anatel, has been ordered by de Moraes to prevent access to the platform by blocking Cloudflare as well as Fastly and EdgeUno servers, and others that the court said had been “created to circumvent” a suspension of X in Brazil.

Update (2024-09-23): Jack Nicas and Ana Ionova:

Now, X’s lawyers said the company had done exactly what Mr. Musk vowed not to: take down accounts that a Brazilian justice ordered removed because the judge said they threatened Brazil’s democracy. X also complied with the justice’s other demands, including paying fines and naming a new formal representative in the country, the lawyers said.

Update (2024-10-09): AP (via Hacker News):

The Brazilian Supreme Court’s Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Tuesday authorized the restoration of social media platform X’s service in Brazil, over a month after its nationwide shutdown, according to a court document that was made public.

Brazil Business Cloudflare Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Internet Service Provider (ISP) Legal SpaceX Starlink Twitter Virtual Private Network (VPN) Web

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