That bounces to a random Nitter instance (there are a few still working), to show the subsequent posts and replies.
The next post in the series (it comes from ggreenwald too) seems relevant:
Last year, we received one of the censorship orders sent by Moraes. This was *after*
the 2022 election and thus after these powers expired.
You can see: they are done with no notice to those banned, and with a requirement
that the order be kept secret:
Brazilian law allows content to be removed online for reasons of investigation, hate speech or unbased defamation. And this was always the case. Moreover, recent laws tried to control the amount of fake news trying to manipulate the elections. The Brazilian electoral laws forbid spending in secret for the purpose of buying or making propaganda for electoral campaign and also regulate what is allowed in the elections. Before the new laws, manipulating social media with lots of fake accounts spreading fake news was a loophole that was being explored by the far right. What they are calling "censorship" is just the application of law.
> Before the new laws, manipulating social media with lots of fake accounts spreading fake news was a loophole that was being explored by the far right.
The left also does that. Their goals is to monopolize and not combat fake news.
Yes, and the left already got banned from TV ads when that happened during the election.
In my state, former Governor and candidate Requião (PT, left) said that the current governor (Ratinho Jr, PSD, Right-wing) didn't give give teachers a salary increase.
It was a lie.
He was banned from TV ads for almost two weeks because he lied.
Ratinho Jr fully supports Bolsonaro. And it's heavily invested in military schools and even banned some books from schools. Very conservative. The party is indeed center, but he is right-wing. Well, just Brazilian things.
Our laws work by enabling censorship. I recognized that, and said that they should not work that way.
Saying wrong things should just hurt your reputation. As in, you become known for being wrong. It should not lead to the fucking government knocking on your door.
>Given 2 hours to suspend an account or face massive fines.
>Being given demands to suspend sitting members of parliament and major journalists, and moreover we could not tell them that this was at the behest of the Alexandre Moraes [the judge they are discussing] and we had to pretend it was due to our rules of service. That was the final straw and we said no.
Sovereign nations are under no obligation to allow foreign governments to flood their communications systems with propaganda and harmful disinformation.
Imagine if during during the cold war, the Soviet Union was permitted to flood NBC, ABC and half the newspapers in the US with demonstrably false and harmful political information. What would a reasonable public policy response to this be?
No one wakes up every day with a clean slate, having forgotten everyone who lied and cheated to them in the past. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice...
Journalistic reporting depends on some degree of trust. I can't go verify everything I read – I don't have the time, means, or interest. No one does that. I feel that in the past Greenwald has demonstrated to be unreliable because he views the world too much through an ideological lens.
Everyone does that with certain outlets and people.
Have you ever debated with a propaganda account? It's worth doing at least once if you haven't. It gives you a sense of how they work.
I've seen no research to suggest that point-by-point reputations of propaganda accounts are effective. Usually it's better to just draw attention to what's happening and move on.
The whole idea of this kind of propaganda is that bs is cheap to generate. You can a/b test it and go with what gains traction. Most people don't have the intellectual background on any given topic to form an informed opinion anyway. And you can shore up even the craziest ideas with "social proof" by deploying additional propaganda accounts to agree with the original.
So I don't think "attack the argument" is effective for this sort of thing. I do think it's important in general when dealing with good faith participants who want to learn things and are willing to change their minds
Does Russian propaganda = lies or just inconvenient truths (such as actual Ukraine casualties or fighting conditions) that Ukraine doesn’t like people to know about. Ukraine is at war and has its own propaganda.
If you enjoy government propaganda I'm not trying to yuck your yum. To each their own. But I do think people should at least be informed what they're eating.
Probably in order to officially leave the country without causing too much bewilderment. Brazil has incredibly low CPM, specially in twitter, and the justice system imposes too much obligations and fines.
Elon is slowly learning why all the policies that twitter used to have existed.
In this case, twitter previously used to have clear content policies and would take down content that violated their own policies, and governments would generally let twitter do content moderation in accordance with twitter's own policies, because that was predictable and manageable.
In the name of free speech, Elon decided that twitter would not take down content unless it was illegal instead of maintaining their own content policy. The brazilian government has realized that twitter has effectively delegated their content policy to the government, and is taking advantage of that for their own gain. Elon does not like this.
This is not completely factual. As was demonstrated by Twitter Files Brazil, censorship requests by the judiciary were happening well before Elon bought Twitter.
Not really. Brazilian courts were always highly political - its members are appointed by presidents, after all. The situation has become more volatile recently, due to the polarised politics.
Courts should be a tad more neutral than they are being right now. The people being investigated, and the journalist reporting it, are well known bad faith misinformation spreaders. But it is not up to a judge to find a reason to stop them. They need to be investigated and prosecuted, not banned from a couple of non Brazilian platforms.
the difference is that no SCOTUS member is opening inquiries in processes where they are the prosecutor, victim, and judge at the same time. Fun fact: Brazil's Supreme Court can legally do that _if a crime occurs in the Court's dependencies_... well, they ruled that as the Court has Internet, and people are hurting their honor there... then it is as if the crime occurred inside the Court
It's hard to overstate how correct this is, not just in the supreme court but lower ones too. As seen in the recently closed case of a father who had incredibly strong evidence that a group of three doctors intentionally murdered his son and spent 22 years trying to get them trialed, reaching success only after becoming active and convincing many people in one of the two large political poles.
Do we need to rethink the idea of global social media platforms? Maybe even the idea of a global internet. If countries like Brazil or India want to have everything censored then perhaps western companies should simply withdraw their main platform and create some subsidiary application solely for people within each of those countries.
Essentially corrupt bureaucrats are the countries. They might have to occasionally follow whims of elected representatives, which the populous is forced to vote and select from small pool.
I think putting it that way could lead someone to believe a country’s population agrees with the actions of the managerial elite. But yes, I agree with the essence of the idea, though I think it’s clearer to say they own or run the country.
I know, and I agree. I just consider it completely illegitimate. If anyone attempted a coup in Brazil, it was the supreme court. Looks like they succeeded too, unlike Bolsonaro and his clumsy flirtations with the topic.
> He and his sons are always the firsts to dose water on the fire when things get close to reaching a critical mass.
That's why I no longer have any respect for him at all. He's a coward with no balls, no convictions and no vision. It's hilarious to me how he's being treated like some ruthless dictator. If only he had been one. He's being treated like Hitler anyway, might as well have tried it just to see what happens. Too cowardly to even do that.
For my money, I think the way this works out is that the idea of global social media conglomerates also falls apart. I think instead of subsidiaries of mostly US companies, governments will prefer to have the social media platform and its officers entirely subject to their jurisdiction with no option of leaving, or have it directly operated by the state, or not have it at all.
> Do we need to rethink the idea of global social media platforms? Maybe even the idea of a global internet.
Yes.
> If countries like Brazil or India want to have everything censored
They aren't even the worst. The biggest advocates of censorship on american social media is europe, canada, israel, etc.
> create some subsidiary application solely for people within each of those countries
Or maybe brazil or india should outright ban these platforms and create their own? These countries have their own national tv stations, newspapers, etc? Why don't they have their own twitter, facebook, etc?
If media essentially controls who you vote for, shouldn't india, brazil and every democracy control their own media? Seems to me that a foreign nation controlling so much of your social media is a direct threat to your democracy.
Besides, if we continue on this path of global social media, we would have to censor everything everyone finds offensive. It would be the tyranny of the offended. The worst kind of tyranny.
I could see setup where there is local wholly independent companies that simply buy IP from some original company, maybe federate allowed content. These would then live on their own domains and be fully controlled by states they are in.
The US has pressured the rest of the world to censor anything it considers to be copyright infringement and enforce its draconian domestic copyright laws.
Every time Americans complain about low democracy in 3rd World countries there is a standard reaction: people from those countries get infuriated because Americans demand standards that they rarely hold. This is another one of those situations.
What the Brazilian courts are doing is persecuting the people who tried to do the equivalent of what those MAGA idiots did on January 6th. The "censorship" imposed by the Brazilian courts is not very different from the gag orders that American judges routinely impose on Trump.
Regardless of Musk's tantrums and throwing fits, Brazil is not a banana republic at the service of American economic interests.
So, here's a standard 3rd World answer: "Mind your business, gringo".
I think what you call Musk's tantrum is simply concern about what you called 'persecution' (you might mean prosecution, but it indeed looks like persecution) of political dissent.
Yes, on Jan 6 some Americans were to some extent coopted (Alex Jones, Ali Akbar, et al) into an event which could then be used endlessly as carte-blanche against any dissent against the establishment party (brought to you by Nike, oh... you rebels!).
Here in the US though, that was a lot of old folks walking within the ropes while being guided by Capitol Police. On the other hand, the left wing in both the US and Brazil seemed to share an appreciation for destruction of property and businesses. That's ok though, right? To save everyone time, I didn't vote for Trump and I'm not a supporter. It isn't hard to call this kind of thing out.
> that was a lot of old folks walking within the ropes while being guided by Capitol Police
No, it wasn't. Everyone saw the videos. They crashed doors. They beat officers with fire extinguishers. They tramped one of themselves to death. Police officers committed suicide after that. They put congress members' lives in danger, and that's why one of them was shot dead. Please don't lie.
> On the other hand, the left wing in both the US and Brazil seemed to share an appreciation for destruction of property and businesses. That's ok though, right?
Sorry but WHAT?
What "property and business" was destroyed by the "left wing"?
Are the "leftists" now the culprits of Musk's incompetent management of Twitter?
Was it the "left wing" that crashed doors and windows, and destroyed precious historical artifacts and expensive furniture on Brazil's January, 8th?
You've never heard of BLM or Antifa or 'mostly peaceful but fiery' arsons I take it. I'm not surprised if there was some outlier activity (again, instigation of the that was largely the point). But I watched it live, and there is plenty of footage still being released (why hide it?). Officers were indeed taking pictures, etc. All I'm asking for is sanity, but clearly partisanship is more important. Sad day.
More than 2,000 rioters entered the building, with many vandalizing and looting, including the offices of then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Congress members. Rioters also assaulted Capitol Police officers and reporters, and attempted to capture and harm lawmakers.
Oh no there was for sure instigation (Ali Akbar, Alex Jones) as mentioned. You see, my view accounts for "more happening" but yours seems to ignore yes, the many confused old folks caught up in the fray (and then the labelling of half the country as terrorists). I think? The right sees the left half as oblivious or using the radicals for direct action (my Marxist friends would say they were thrown under the bus). The left seems to think grandma was smashing Capitol Police heads in. I saw the footage. Maybe some nuance is in order? No? Only regurgitating the TV, eh...
The court illegaly gave itself more or less limitless powers. They've been abusing those powers for half a decade now. In fact they grew so bold that they violated the constitution when they engaged in censorship of a political nature. They have exactly zero incentive to ever stop. They know that the second they relinquish their newfound powers, they will likely be tried and found guilty and held accountable, just like they persecuted Bolsonaro the second he was no longer in power. They are committed. The only possible course of action for them now is to grab and consolidate more power.
The second is also false: if you perform an attack against the supreme court, in an coup attempt, or if you menace ministers, or the judges of supreme court, it is the supreme court that will handle the case. Likewise, if I say that I will kill all judges in the world, if I am persecuted for this, I cannot use as defense the fact that no judge can judge me because they were the victims of my menace.
It is also false that inquiry 4874 do not specify a crime to investigate. Menacing ministers, unbased defamation or lies about people are crimes. And they become more qualified if these crimes are with the intent of attack the rule of law and support a coup.
Your legal comprehension of the case is low and you are just repeating the far right narrative, created so that they will not face consequences for their coup attempt.
It's not false and it was only made possible by a corruption of the written words in the Supreme Court regiment AND by ignoring the 1988 constitution.
> The second is also false: if you perform an attack against the supreme court, in an coup attempt, or if you menace ministers, or the judges of supreme court, it is the supreme court that will handle the case.
First of all, there is no "fake news" crime in the Brazilian criminal code. Second, the Supreme Court cannot handle cases of people without special jurisdiction privileges, it must be handle by first instance courts. Third, you cannot have the same person performing the roles of victim, prosecutor and judge. This is a basically rule of Law, it's simply dishonest to pretend it's OK.
> It is also false that inquiry 4874 do not specify a crime to investigate.
Considering the existence of fraudulent news (fake news), slanderous denunciations, threats and infractions coated with animus calumniandi, diffamanadi and injuriandi, which affect the honor and security of the Federal Supreme Court, its members and families, resolves, in accordance with article 43 and subsequent of the Internal Regiment, open an iquiry to investigate the facts and corresponding infractions, in all their dimensions. [1]
Not a single concrete, specific instance of a crime is mentioned. There are only vagaries. It's a wildcard inquiry designed for political persecution.
> Your legal comprehension of the case is low and you are just repeating the far right narrative, created so that they will not face consequences for their coup attempt.
I've filled my comments with references, including the original document which determines the inquiry to be opened. Meanwhile all your comments accuse me of lying without any proof.
The thing is, I believe you know the inquiry is illegal, but you support it anyway because it is happening against people you don't like. That's why you have to bring up the ghost of a "far right narrative", but you are unable to reply with a single concrete fact.
In fact you don't even realize that you fail basic logic by referring to an event that happened on January 8th 2023 to justify the unconstitutional opening of an inquiry that happened 2019.
To make sure HN readers are not misled by your biased rebuttals, I will quote the words of the Brazilian Attorney General at the time, on her request for the archival of the inquiry, which was denied by the judge, prosecutor and victim of the case [2].
- The decision of Justice Dias Toffoli, who ordered the opening of this investigation ex officio, appointed its rapporteur, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, without observing the principle of free distribution; and gave it investigative powers, breached the guarantee of judicial impartiality in criminal actions, in addition to obstructing the criminal action holder’s access to the investigation.
- In addition to not observing the constitutional rules for the delimitation of powers or functions of the Public Prosecutor's Office in the criminal process, this decision transformed the investigation into an act with the concentration of criminal functions in the judge, which puts at risk the accusatory criminal system itself and the guarantee of the investigated regarding the exemption from the judging body.
- The jurisdiction of the Federal Supreme Court is not defined based on the fact that this court is a possible victim of a criminal act. The delimitation of the investigation cannot be generic, abstract, nor can it be exploratory of indeterminate acts, without definition of time and space, nor of individuals. After more than 30 days of this initiation, the files were not even sent to the Public Prosecutor's Office, as determined by the criminal procedural law itself
All your interpretation and from some of jurists that you cite is that the attacks that Brazilian institutions suffered, like the attacks caused by digital militias during the Bolsonaro government were not serious coordinated attacks against the rule of law and against the tribunal. If so, involving the supreme tribunal in the case was overkill and should not have been done. This is just this: an interpretation which lost the discussion in the relevant judgements. Several jurists will also have divergent interpretations: it does not matter, there are instances that deal with divergent interpretations and choose the right one, and STF is the maximum instance. The tribunal is chosen by different elected presidents from the past and they vote making the majority decide. Saying that "Brazil is dictatorship" just because you have a divergent interpretation is ridiculous.
You criticize that the STF was not the organization that should have opened the inquiry, saying that using article 43 of internal regiment of STF was wrong. You replicate the arguments in far right groups. According with your interpretation, build a missile to attack the tribunal is not a "crime in the dependencies of the tribunal". You are free to have this interpretation, but this is not the vigent interpretation. Moreover, what you also are conveniently ignoring is that organizations that otherwise should have opened the case if the attack were not considered in the dependencies of tribunal, nonetheless agreed with the inquiry: https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/06/10/agu-e-pgr-d... [source in pt-BR]
Several of your arguments, taken from far right groups, are weak:
> First of all, there is no "fake news" crime in the Brazilian criminal code.
This is just a term used in media. Show me an instance of someone jailed by "fake news". It does not exist. People are charged by crimes of threatening other people, unbased defamation, trying to abolish the rule of law, all of them are crimes and should be punished.
> Third, you cannot have the same person performing the roles of victim, prosecutor and judge.
If I threaten to kill all judges in Brazil, and create a plan to do so, according with you, I cannot be judged because any judge would also be victim in my crime? The fact is that there are cases where the STF has power to act, and that ridiculous argument do not overwrite this. Moreover, nobody is being at the same time judge and prosecutor. Inquiries are not criminal processes, they are administrative procedures. The criminal process comes later. And the prosecutor is not the STF, but the Prosecutor General of the Republic. Unless you have proofs that judges instruct and help prosecutors, like was proven in the carwash operation. But if this operation were carried like the carwash, Bolsonaro would already have been jailed. But fortunately that the due process in being respected in his case.
Once again you don't address the points in my previous points and reply with something completely different.
> All your interpretation and from some of jurists that you cite is that the attacks that Brazilian institutions suffered, like the attacks caused by digital militias during the Bolsonaro government were not serious coordinated attacks against the rule of law and against the tribunal.
Oh yes, the grave attacks of people talking on twitter. The Brazilian institutions suffered so much.
> Saying that "Brazil is dictatorship" just because you have a divergent interpretation is ridiculous.
Brazil is a dictatorship because its own Supreme Court disrespects the constitution, censors elected congressmen and journalists without due process (see Twitter Files Brazil), arrests people with without due process, withdraws access to case files to defense attorneys... the list goes on.
> You replicate the arguments in far right groups
Yes, the former Republic Attorney General, a well known far right extremist.
> This is just a term used in media
The exact term is used in the opening of the wildcard illegal inquiry.
> If I threaten to kill all judges in Brazil, and create a plan to do so, according with you, I cannot be judged because any judge would also be victim in my crime?
You think this is some sort of slam dunk argument but it is so juvenile that it shouldn't even deserve a thoughtful reply. You create a fantasy scenario where there's no specific victim ("threaten all judges in Brazil") that is obviously so absurd that such a threat shouldn't even be considered seriously. In the case of an actual crime, where a number of judges are victims, one would expect that investigations are carried out by the Federal Prosecution Service, not by the judges themselves, and that the case would be judged different judges, not the victims themselves.
> The fact is that there are cases where the STF has power to act
This is the core of the problem. The Supreme Court has the power to do whatever it wants, without limits. It is also a political court that is, in their own words, adversarial against right wing thought, and to defeat the right wing they will not be limited by the rule of law.
> Moreover, nobody is being at the same time judge and prosecutor
Reached the same conclusion as you just did. When I get into these discussions, I end up feeling like I'm getting gaslit. Stuff happened, I saw it happen but the other guy just keeps insisting it didn't happen until the end of time. I'm honestly not even sure if it's deliberate or not.
>, censors elected congressmen and journalists without due process
Not censorship. Brazilian law allows you to remove content in case of criminal investigation, threatenings, unbased defamation....
> arrests people with without due process, withdraws access to case files to defense attorneys
> You think this is some sort of slam dunk argument but it is so juvenile that it shouldn't even deserve a thoughtful reply.
It's not mine, its your argument. You says that people that attacks or theatens STF judge cannot be judged by them, even in the context that the law allows it. According with you, if the presidents enters in STF and try to shoot the judges, nobody should judge him, as the law says that STF should judge this situation, but the STF minister were the targeted victims.
> This is the core of the problem. The Supreme Court has the power to do whatever it wants, without limits. I
It is not acting without limits. Contrary to your narrative nobody is being just censored. People are being charged with real accusations, like threatening other people, attempt against the rule of law, etc.
This is just blatant lie.
> Not censorship. Brazilian law allows you to remove content in case of criminal investigation, threatenings, unbased defamation....
The law allows that under certain conditions, yes. Are these conditions being met? No. It’s being used as a political weapon in a crusade of the Supreme Court against certain political beliefs.
When you have rules that are selectively applied by a political court, it is censorship.
How many people on the left have been investigated for threatening or defaming a right wing politician since the inquiry was opened?
> You says that people that attacks or theatens STF judge cannot be judged by them, even in the context that the law allows it.
There is no law that allows it. There is an internal regiment, which the newer 1988 constitution contradicts. But even if you ignore that, the regiment very clearly defines under which conditions the Supreme Court itself can open an inquiry, that is, crimes that happen within the premises of the court. That requirement was clearly not satisfied, so the court invented a new “interpretation” that considers things that happen on the internet to be within its premises.
> It is not acting without limits.
Yes it is, as I have explained multiple times. Bypassing jurisdiction, coming up with convenient “interpretations” that give them more power, mass incarceration of people without formal accusation, denying defense attorneys access to court papers, requiring content to be taken offline without due process, and so on.
You cannot bend the law to go after people you don’t like. That’s not how democracy works.
> The law allows that under certain conditions, yes. Are these conditions being met? No. It’s being used as a political weapon in a crusade of the Supreme Court against certain political beliefs.
Ok, now you need to prove that the conditions are not being met. As the prosecutors in each case will present the proofs for each case when the inquiry becomes a criminal case.
> How many people on the left have been investigated for threatening or defaming a right wing politician since the inquiry was opened?
Perhaps, the secret for not being condemned is not commit crimes...? Is the left also trying a coup or created digital militias to spread disinformation and threats like the far right...?
> There is no law that allows it. There is an internal regiment, which the newer 1988 constitution contradicts. But even if you ignore that, the regiment very clearly defines under which conditions the Supreme Court itself can open an inquiry, that is, crimes that happen within the premises of the court. That requirement was clearly not satisfied, so the court invented a new “interpretation” that considers things that happen on the internet to be within its premises.
The court interpretation was not challenged by AGU and PGR (https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/06/10/agu-e-pgr-d...). Even if you were the authority selected by democratic governments to interpret the law, which you are not, following your interpretation, the other entities that should open the inquiry all agreed with the inquiry.
> mass incarceration of people without formal accusation,
Trying to abolish the rule of law, armed criminal association, vandalism, destruction of historical items are not serious accusations enough...? All them were jailed in flagrant. If you kill someone and is captured on the act, you will be jailed on flagrant, you cannot escape this trying to defend yourself saying that "nobody opened yet a formal accusation". The formal accusation will be opened, but we had a flagrant crime.
> Ok, now you need to prove that the conditions are not being met. As the prosecutors in each case will present the proofs for each case when the inquiry becomes a criminal case.
If a crime was committed, why wasn't it disclosed?
Right now we’ve had requests for accounts of congressman and journalists to be blocked. Notice this isn’t content being taken down. They were forbidden to express themselves in the social network platforms. Even if you make the case they posted “illegal content” (still waiting for the definition of this), it’s not that this content was removed. The state asked the platforms to block every future content they may post. Is that future content also illegal? What is this, Minority Report?
Moreover, no reason was specified for the blocking. The platforms were requested to comply with removal of content in under 2 hours and to pretend it was being done due to violation of their terms of service.
They even notified Rumble, which has no office in Brazil. Does the Brazilian Supreme Court jurisdiction cover the whole world?
> Perhaps, the secret for not being condemned is not commit crimes...?
What crimes? You still have not listed a single one. And you can’t, because the political actions of the court are being done under secrecy. In fact, even the defense attorneys do not know, because the case files are being kept from them. Is this what you call rule of law?
> Is the left also trying a coup
The left has practiced similar acts of vandalism multiple times, but when the left does it it’s not a coup attempt, it’s a “fight for rights and democracy” (example: [1] — notice: with the direct participation of a far-left politician that is now a candidate for mayor of São Paulo).
You keep forgetting that this inquiry preceded the events of January 8th, so by simple logic, those events cannot be used as justification for the inquiry.
> or created digital militias to spread disinformation and threats like the far right...?
Uhm, yes. [2,3,4,5,6]
> The court interpretation was not challenged by AGU and PGR
Your own link says they have required “clear parameters”.
“We just need markers so that the object is not changing [variable]”, argued Aras. The PGR asked the Supreme Court “so that the object [of the investigation] is carried out in a delimited manner and that invasive measures are previously submitted to the accusatory system and that the Public Prosecution Service can receive the attention of rapporteur Alexandre de Moraes and other rapporteurs in other inquiries.”
Have the requested boundaries been implemented? No. The Public Prosecution Service request was once again ignored, just as in 2019 when the Attorney General requested the archival of the inquiry due to its unconstitutionality.
> Trying to abolish the rule of law, armed criminal association, vandalism, destruction of historical items are not serious accusations enough...?
Some people were arrested far away from the vandalism site, while peacefully protesting, with no formal accusation and are still in jail. Uber drivers who were taking people to the protests were arrested. Street sellers who were selling Brazilian flags at the day were arrested. Children were sent to jail with their parents. Even fucking dogs were sent to prison.
How many people were sent to jail after the far-left attack on government buildings in 2015? Zero.
The rule of law in Brazil has already been abolished, but not by who you think.
> If a crime was committed, why wasn't it disclosed?
It IS disclosed for the involved and accused parties. It is NOT disclosed to Twitter, who is not an involved party. Therefore, the information do not concern Twitter.
> They even notified Rumble, which has no office in Brazil. Does the Brazilian Supreme Court jurisdiction cover the whole world?
They can notify anyone. They can punish only those under their jurisdiction.
> What crimes? You still have not listed a single one.
Hate speech, spread disinformation about elections, irregular political propaganda, threatening other people, trying to abolish the rule of law...
> And you can’t, because the political actions of the court are being done under secrecy. In fact, even the defense attorneys do not know, because the case files are being kept from them.
Where is the source or proof of this information? Far right groups on social media? There are secrecy when there is an ongoing investigation. When people is criminally accused, they have the required information for defend themselves.
> The left has practiced similar acts of vandalism multiple times, but when the left does it it’s not a coup attempt, it’s a “fight for rights and democracy”
Whataboutism which do not even make sense. The linked protest had not the objective of abolishing the rule of law.
> You keep forgetting that this inquiry preceded the events of January 8th, so by simple logic, those events cannot be used as justification for the inquiry.
January 8th did not happened randomly, happening from thin air. There was an ongoing coup attempt happening since much earlier.
> Some people were arrested far away from the vandalism site, while peacefully protesting, with no formal accusation and are still in jail. Uber drivers who were taking people to the protests were arrested. Street sellers who were selling Brazilian flags at the day were arrested. Children were sent to jail with their parents. Even fucking dogs were sent to prison.
You took this from far right groups in social media? Children or dogs cannot be arrested. When needed, children are sent to public institutions to take care of them if her parents committed crimes like trying to abolish the rule of law in a coup. Any relative can then ask to take care of them.
> It IS disclosed for the involved and accused parties.
Nope, defense attorneys have not had access to case files in many instances.
> Hate speech, spread disinformation about elections, irregular political propaganda, threatening other people, trying to abolish the rule of law...
You can list the whole criminal code if you want, but you cannot point to a single concrete case.
> Where is the source or proof of this information? Far right groups on social media?
Careful, you say “far right” so much that someone might mistake you for a journalist.
Here are some sources. You tell me of they are “far right groups”[1,2,3].
> Whataboutism which do not even make sense. The linked protest had not the objective of abolishing the rule of law.
Both were instances of vandalism. One had no consequences for the perpetrators. The other is painted as an “attempt to abolish the rule of law” for political reasons and has resulted in unlawful mass incarceration.
How many “abolition the rule of law” events have been attempted without the use of guns in the history of the world?
Vandalism was committed by people revolted with the idea that a country’s biggest criminal organization would be back in power. Painting this as a coup attempt is farcical.
> January 8th did not happened randomly, happening from thin air. There was an ongoing coup attempt happening since much earlier.
You cannot replace basic logic with a conspiracy theory either. You justify a 2019 inquiry (whose opening text mentions the word “coup” exactly zero times) because of 2023 events. This makes no sense and the fact that you insist on this point only shows that you are not interest in honest conversation about this subject.
You will justify any attack against those you don’t like, and you will not be limited by things such as logic while doing so. I hope you never become a victim of the kind of tyranny you support.
> You took this from far right groups in social media? Children or dogs cannot be arrested.
I use a personal Nitter instance to access TwiXXer but that would not survive public exposure without being blocked so given that there are many here with MDS I'll just post Shellenberger's message.
BRAZIL IS ON THE BRINK
I’m reporting to you from Brazil, where a dramatic series of events are underway.
At 5:52 pm Eastern Time, today, April 6, 2024, X corporation, formerly known as Twitter, announced that a Brazilian court had forced it to “block certain popular accounts in Brazil.”
Then, less than one hour later, the owner of X, @ElonMusk announced that X would defy the court’s order, and lift all restrictions.
“As a result,” said Musk, “we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit.”
At any moment, Brazil’s Supreme Court could shut off all access to X/Twitter for the people of Brazil.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Brazil is on the brink of dictatorship at the hands of a totalitarian Supreme Court Justice named Alexandre de Moraes.
President Lula da Silva is participating in the push toward totalitarianism. Since taking office, Lula has massively increased government funding of the mainstream news media, most of which are encouraging increased censorship.
What Lula and de Moraes are doing is an outrageous violation of Brazil’s constitution and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
At this moment, Brazil is not yet a dictatorship. It still has elections and the Brazilian people have other means at their disposal to confront authoritarianism.
But the Federal Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court are directly interfere in those elections through censorship.
Three days ago I published the Twitter Files for Brazil. They show that Moraes has violated the Brazilian Constitution. Moraes illegally demanded that Twitter reveal private information about Twitter users who used hashtags he considered inappropriate. He demanded access to Twitter's internal data, violating the platform's policy. He censored, on his own initiative and without any respect for due process, posts on Twitter by parliamentarians from the Brazilian Congress. And Moraes tried to turn Twitter's content moderation policies into a weapon against supporters of then-president Jair Bolsonaro.
I say this as an independent and non-partisan journalist. I'm not a fan of either Bolsonaro or Trump. My political views are very moderate. But I know censorship when I see it.
The Twitter Files also revealed that Google, Facebook, Uber, WhatsApp and Instagram betrayed the people of Brazil. If such evidence is proven, the executives of these companies behaved like cowards: they provided the Brazilian government with personal registration data and telephone numbers without a court order and, therefore, violating the law.
When Twitter refused to provide Brazilian authorities with private user information, including direct messages, the government attempted to sue Twitter's top Brazilian lawyer.
When I lived in Brazil in 1992, I was very left-wing. At the time, Lula and the PT's slogans were “Without fear of being happy”.
In recent days, I have spoken to dozens of Brazilians, including professors, journalists and respected lawyers. Everyone tells me they are shocked by what is happening. They told me that they are afraid to speak their mind and that the Lula government is complicit in creating this climate of fear.
Brazil belongs to the Brazilians. It is not my country. As such, there are limits to what I am capable of doing.
But I can say things that many Brazilians do not feel safe saying: Alexandre de Moraes is a tyrant. And the only way to deal with tyrants is to confront them. It is up to Brazil’s senators to confront the tyrant. And it is up to the people of Brazil to demand that their senators do so.
@dang it looks like some political group are clicking on the flag button. Without moderation it's probably for the best, political divisiveness doesn't belong here, but I fail to see how this story is divisive except perhaps the fact it's related to a judge appointed by a president. Consider unflagging it and delete/warn/ban overly political divisive comments.
Well, it is already unflagged. I don't follow your logic here though, the owner of Twitter isn't an adequate source of judicial orders received by twitter? What's wrong with Greenwald? Are you implying they collided to report something that did not happen? Why would that make sense? If that was the case, that itself would be news, not something to just flag and ignore.
>Because many would say that Greenwald is not an honest broker, and neither is Musk.
Honestly, you could say the same thing about the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, RT, DW, etc or hell, even the Brazilian Supreme Court who will say “everything is working just fine”, despite the increasing censorship happening in the country that they have been perpetuating. Everyone has some narrative and bias. The problem is to think this bias is only there when I'm listening to someone who I disagree to. And when I'm reading the Times, I'm listening to some sort of "unfiltered truth".
>The problem is to think this bias is only there when I'm listening to someone who I disagree with
I'd argue the bigger problem is rampant "what-aboutism" that infects virtually every discussion these days. What does the NYT or WaPo have to do with Musk, Brazil, or this situation? The subject is Musk. Why broaden the discussion this way to "even out" things for him?
In any case, I was responding to the OP who asked why this article would be considered divisive. My answer is that some (including myself) don't deem Musk/Greenwald to be honest brokers. Musk and his allies have a distinct pattern of supporting certain narratives and rejecting others, while claiming to be champions of free speech and freedom.
The interlocutor doesn't matter. You shouldn't trust anyone as a general rule and you don't need to trust Musk or Gleenwald as they are not the only ones talking about this.
> The subject is Musk.
You tried to make it so but the subject is authoritarianism in Brazil.
Of course it matters. And, there is roughly a 0% chance that anyone who is at least semi-cogent, including you, operates in the real world with the belief that it doesn't. That would be highly inadvisable, unless one enjoys being a persistent rube.
>You tried to make it so
The story is about Musk's and Greenwald's takes on authoritariansim in Brazil. The OP asked how it could be considered divisive. One obvious answer is that people are considering the source(s) and their histories. Whatever your personal feelings, two things are true:
1. People absolutely do consider the source
2. Musk and Greenwald are controversial figures with specific motives and ideologies that frequently cause rancor
I realize your argument was that the story is divisive and I might've made an unnecessary rebuttal. Yes, the interlocutor can make a story divisive though it doesn't change the truthiness (or falseness) of the subject.
Where Musk and Greenwald are often divisive they are not the only voices calling out the supreme court authoritarianism in Brazil. The acts and postures of the ministers are enough evidence.
It's a single-line tweet with no information, no background, no anything. I learned nothing from clicking this link beyond a vague accusation which may or may not have merit to it and where there may or may not be more to the story.
My submission referring to Shellenberger's comments on the actions of this judge a few hours ago was also flagged and killed quickly, I referred to it in a comment above [1]. He was a bit more elaborate than Greenwald in explaining the background - which does not seem 'vague' at all - which clearly posts a picture of regulatory abuse related to information distribution, something which clearly intersects with the interest sphere of many HN users and certainly many Brazilian HN users. It was quite common to see criticism of Bolsonaro [2] survive and thrive here but criticism of Lula da Silva hitherto does not fare as well which does point at a political dimension at play.
Is this the part where — in order to avoid being downloaded or flagged — everyone continues to pretend that Musk really is a "free speech absolutist", instead of acknowledging a clear and distinct pattern of what he enforces, and against whom?
It's not exactly a secret. See, for example, censorship in Turkey and India. In general, he's overwhelmingly approved censorship requests from authoritarian governments. So much for "free speech absolutism".
In general, Musk himself regularly shouts his biases at the top of his lungs, and has applied selective enforcement of Twitter's own TOS. His selectivity can be easily aligned with his biases.
EU bureaucrats forced Musk to geo-ban Russian mass media in EU states, make up the law, either you comply or you will be denied whole market. No matter what you do, government will come for you if they can not control you, they will ban you. Musk decided to comply. Even self proclaimed free speech absolutist from the land of free speech can not fight this.
> Musk decided to comply. Even self proclaimed free speech absolutist from the land of free speech can not fight this.
He has always been explicit in saying that he will protect _legal_ speech and would remove _illegal_ content. He always conceded that relevant laws can and will change, and finds this an acceptable and democratic way to moderate public discourse.
Except that the contents banned in Brazil were illegal content. Brazilian law allows content to be removed online for reasons of investigation, hate speech or unbased defamation. The Brazilian electoral laws forbids spending in secret for the purpose of buying or making propaganda for electoral campaign and also regulate what is allowed in the elections. For example: spending to propagate fake news to manipulate elections is not allowed.
Fake news... Such as the fact Lula is a socialist and a communist? I have videos of him calling himself a socialist, that should be good enough proof for anyone. Yet the judges censored it as fake news before election day. Care to comment on that? How about the fact he appointed a communist to the supreme court to act as a judge? I believe his words were something along the lines of "we finally have a communist in the supreme court". You're gonna gaslight me by claiming that's fake? Maybe AI generated? Some guy asked this new judge point blank if he was a communist, I remember his reply was "thank god", as in, absolutely. But according to the authorities it's all a conspiracy theory and there is no communism anywhere in this nation, right? It's all fake.
Fake news... Such as the fact Lula is friends with the Venezuelan dictator? You know, the guy the US charged with narco-terrorism? Fake news, right? Lula wouldn't be so brazen as to literally roll out the red carpet for this guy immediately after the election, would he? He totally did though. Must have been seeing things I guess. Yeah that must be it. I literally hallucinated the entire episode.
Fake news... Such as the fact Lula was implicated in, convicted of and incarcerated for the biggest corruption scandal in the history of this country? And also the fact these judges just threw out the whole case on some minor technicality? Pulled him straight out of jail just in time for the election? You're gonna tell me that I'm delusional, that I'm misremembering things?
The way I see it, literally everything they censored as "fake" turned out to be true in the end. So what's the penalty for the truth ministers when they turn out to be wrong? Maybe they should sign the order for their own arrests? Are they even allowed to be wrong? Does reality have to bend and conform until they're right? Maybe they'll redefine pi as 5 and arrest the mathematicians who prove him wrong?
The Brazilian electoral laws forbid spending in secret for the purpose of buying or making propaganda for electoral campaign and also regulate what is allowed in the elections. You cannot, for example, spend money in secret, with undeclared propaganda. Neither you can create videos with distorted information. All these are fair reasons to remove content. Of course, if you are too blinded by far right ideology or McCarthyism, it can be difficult to notice distortions because you believe in false or distorted informations.
I am not the one echoing on foreign forums and sites a discourse created by extremist groups to prevent criminals in Brazil to be punished by law. Nor I am imagining a non existent "dictatorship" just because extremists are being persecuted by laws, laws that equally applies to any side of the political spectrum.
Nowadays anyone that isn't far-left is called far-right and extremist, those words are meaningless.
Only the supporters of Lula are supporting this narrative that the STF is only applying the law. I don't think they realize the danger of authoritarianism. Tides inevitably change.
Where you also pro judicial activism when operation Car Wash arrested hundreds of corrupts and recovered billions of taxpayer money? Or are you only in favor of judicial activism when it's used to release your political idol from jail and to persecute his political adversaries?
I don't "echo discourses" anywhere buddy. I speak my mind.
You just have no respect for the thoughts of others, do you? No respect for their freedom to think and say what they want, for their intellectual self-determination. Either they toe the party line or they're dangerous and should be persecuted.
> laws that equally applies to any side of the political spectrum
Prior to the election the censorship was more or less 9:1 in favor of Lula. Who also happened to be the favored candidate of the supreme court judges.
Are you seriously claiming that they were treated equally? That this was a level playing field?
> This "brazilian dictatorship of Alexandre de Moraes" is something from the far right discourse
Looks like the rest of world isn't buying that nonsense.
Whatever. Believe whatever you want. I won't call for your arrest over it. That's just barbaric.
> Prior to the election the censorship was more or less 9:1 in favor of Lula. Who also happened to be the favored candidate of the supreme court judges.
Oh, yeah, most of them, the same judges that voted for keeping Lula jailed, forbade them of being liberated for attending to his brother's funeral... They really are Lula supporters...
But oh, one side of the election 20x more disinformation against ellections and committed much more irregularities, and they suffered 9x more penalties and condemnations... Really a very serious proof of biased judges...
Uh yeah. When after the election you go to public events and brag about the fact that the court defeated Bolsonarism and that if Lula is in the presidency today it's due to the court's decisions, it becomes essentially impossible to claim that you are not biased. I remember one of them even bragged about how he's proud to be partidarian in complete defiance of common sense.
... Huh? Back up a bit. So what you're telling me is all this stuff you're claiming is "fake news" is not actually false. Is that it? You admit that now?
"Distorted"? Come on. It's either true or false. Evaluate the words and pick one.
Bolsonaro's political campaign stated the simplest of facts literally point blank. I remember it, I was there. Straight up called the guy a socialist, a friend of dictators. Are you or are you NOT claiming those statements are FALSE?
And don't give that "distorted" nonsense either. It's pretty clear cut. True or false? Answer it. Your entire "fake news" narrative rests on that answer.
> You cannot, for example, spend money in secret, with undeclared propaganda
So... So your problem with the statements is how they paid for the publicity? Not that they're supposedly false?
> Neither you can create videos with distorted information.
Contradicted by the brazilian constitution. "The manifestation of thought, creation, of expression and of information, in any form and by any process or vehicle, shall suffer no restriction".
You gonna claim the literal law of Brazil is "distorted"?
There are no "fake news" laws, by the way. After the elections they tried to get one passed but it was rejected by representatives elected by the brazilian people.
So when you say "I can't" do this and that, I'm afraid you're gonna have to cite the law that prohibits it. Because I don't think I've ever seen that law. All I've seen is supreme court judges and their "resolutions". I suppose that's fine too... If you accept that this country is not actually a democracy.
> All these are fair reasons to remove content.
How about no. Government censorship is never justified.
> blinded by far right ideology or McCarthyism
If anything there isn't enough "McCarthyism" to go around. Communism is one of the most genocidal and destructive politics ever invented. Why is it that they get to freely infiltrate my society?
You'll oppose neo-nazis but not communists? Why is it that in Brazil neo-nazis go straight to jail but unabashed socialists get to walk the soil of my country completely unimpeded? Why is it that they get to become president, supreme court judges? What a total joke. If you're gonna criminalize nazism, then I demand that you also criminalize communism.
That's the point. It's not really much of a big deal to be denied the brazilian market. Brazil is just the world's farm and most of the produce goes to China anyway. And things are only going to get worse now that communists are in power. He wouldn't be talking so big if it was China at the other end.
Still, I'm not about to argue with a good thing. He stared the judge down and that instantly made him my hero. I don't even care why he did it. He's probably not such free speech extremist when profits are on the line but that doesn't matter to me right now. I'll never forget the fact he challenged this judge. It needed to be done and he did it.
There's a saying here in Brazil. "Doctors think they are gods... Judges know it." You have no idea how good it feels to see someone defy these so called "gods".
Tired of Musk fanboi’s conflicting hate speech and disinformation with freedom. Tired of North Americans and Europeans that have zero context about nuances of Brazilian recent history and struggles, thinking their shallow opinions and misconceptions should be accepted as facts. Really tired of tech bros that think everything that is against their ability to troll is censorship.
Tired of countries who think they get to impose their standards on American social media companies (because they cannot make their own) throwing tantrums that they will act in line with American values. You think you have a right to regulate what someone can and cannot say - America does not. Block twitter and make your own then.
> Tired of countries who think they get to impose their standards on American social media companies
Being an American social media do not exempts you from following the law in the countries where you operate. They do not carry with them to that countries the jurisdiction of American laws.
Oh I'm sure the americans will quickly get sick of this unelected brazilian judge, a literal nobody from some barbaric communist country, thinking he can whimsically censor and fine their corporations. In fact I'm counting on it. I hope this guy pisses the americans off so much they actually apply sanctions to my own country.
Not the first time he does it either. Last year Google engaged in a little campaign against their proposed "fake news" law, they just added a little link to their home page. These judges censored Google: take it down or face totally arbitrary fines of about 200kUSD per hour.
They essentially threatened to steal from the american economy an average software developer's yearly salary every hour if their demands were not met. Their unconstitutional demands, by the way. Brazilian constitution says censorship is illegal. And these are the guys whose literal job is to apply that constitution.
Think about it. Google could have hired one person from here for every hour of "disobedience". Doesn't that piss you off? I hope it does. I hope it gets someone to write something to their representatives.
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