Usually Gwen Shotwell, SpaceX COO, is good at keeping Elon in check and not screwing up SpaceX business. I wonder what happened this time.
This is the intersection of Xitter and SpaceX and it looks like Xitter takes priority.
His ego is above all else
If you can only access Xitter through SpaceX, can we call the combination “SpaceXitter”?
If Starlink follows through on its reported vow to ignore the X ban, it is likely to face similar sanctions itself for ignoring a supreme court order.
That could have a big impact in the Brazilian Amazon, where Starlink antennae have spread rapidly since being made available in September 2022, bringing high-speed internet connection to far-flung regions. By the end of 2023 Starlink antennae were being used in more than 90% of the Amazon’s municipalities, according to BBC Brasil.
I mean are those people really going to be using Twitter anyway?
On one hand, fuck Musk. On the other hand, internet from space that can’t be blocked by governments is a net positive in my book.
What if payments to Starlink are blocked by Brazilian government?
He is in a unique position, theoretically he can make everything go through the country his servers are in assuming they pay over their own satellite internet, illegal… mmm almost certainly but so is keeping Ex Twitter on in Brazil so he probably doesn’t care about that, and it’s essentially exactly what a VPN does sooo, oh yeah they could also just use a VPN I guess.
Bruh, VPN for what? If Brazil bans payments to Starlink, essentially sanctioning it, how is end user going to circumvent that?
I mean they can jump through hoops to convert currencies etc but most people would just give up and move on.
Paying with Bitcoin is less of a hoop to jump through than it used to be.
But still far to much of a hassle for the general public. Hell, half the people I know refuse to figure out a regular e-transfer/cash app. There’s no way they’ll even consider bitcoin; or really any other currency.
PayPal venmo WhatsApp
Starlink is free in Brazil right now.
Is it? Didn’t realise Elon was running a charity.
It’s literally in the article you’re responding to.
You expect me to read the article‽😳
Anyway, I seemed to miss that and this is just Elon being a petulant manchild. But Starlink management has decided to comply with blocking Xitter as of today.
Not blockable by any government would be a positive in my book if it didn’t imply bloclable by a single billionaire with huge mood swing. Don’t forget how musk switched off starlink in Crimea at Putin’s request when the Russian realized starlink guided missile were heading towards their ships (Source
That’s not exactly what happened. Starlink was already disabled in Crimea when the attack was launched and Musk refused to enable it specifically for the attack. Then the initial reports got a bit tangled up.
But yes, none of this should be up to Musk.
Can’t calculate the net yet, since we don’t know the gross. He has the capability to cause massive damage with the power he wields. It’s already clear that he’s incapable of providing an unbiased platform. It needs to belong to the people or it can never be trusted
It needs to belong to the people or it can never be trusted
Damn commies!
The ability to recognize sarcasm doesn’t seem to be particularly developed on Lemmy.
And if fucking hate the /s.
The ability to recognize sarcasm doesn’t seem to be particularly developed on
Lemmythe internet.FTFY
I get that simple text doesn’t convey as much as images or speech, but, …i find myself having to add the /s (but it’s easier to ignore the downvotes).
How about internet that can be blocked at the whims of a billionaire? At least government is supposed to answer to the people.
Dictatorships don’t answer to the people. It’s absolutely a problem that billionaires are controlling the flow of information, but it’s much worse for a dictator to do it.
Oh honey, do you really ignore that a huge chunk of dictatorships do it for the money and most are already billionaires? Why exactly do you think Musk supports the orange cheeto?
Because the orange Cheeto wants to cut his taxes so he gets more money. Dictators want power, not money. That’s why they are famous for blowing it on such exorbitant things. It’s just a means to an end. To billionaires the money is the end.
That’s an extremely naïve view of the world. If Musk could sit the chair, he would. What do you think the accumulation of unhinged amounts of wealth is about but increased power? What do you think those opulent displays of wealth from dictators is about but to flaunt that they have all the wealth and power?
Musk could easily buy himself a governorship or a senatorial position and work up from there. That’s not his goal. He wants to be the next Thomas Edison. He wants to be admired and remembered.
Dictator’s opulent displays of wealth are to stoke their egos. They don’t care about the money they spend because they just took it, they didn’t earn it. They care about how much control they have over the people around them. They don’t care if people like them ,only that they fear them.
Musk has already said he welcomes a chance to work in the Trump administration, so…
I don’t see a difference tbh.
Dictators do things like build and use rape rooms or throw people they don’t like out of helicopters.
You think that billionaires don’t do that? Have you heard of Harvey Epstein? Who do you think the biggest customers of child trafficking and sex slaves are?
I think you’ve conflated Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein. Incidentally there is a Harvey Weinstein, but he is a progressive NY State legislator, not whatever either of those two fucks are.
So as long as this one specific billionaire hasn’t had someone killed (that we know of) that makes it okay for that one individual to have complete control over what people have access to?
Brazil’s not a dictatorship though and twitter is breaking their hate speech rules.
Musk is just as bad as most actual dictators with his global reach
This is about Brazil, which is not a Dictatorship.
*Their lobbying shareholders and maybe the people that elected them
it can be (and has been) blocked by musk on occasion though.
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i think you might be responding to the wrong comment?
How is a billionaire manchild in charge any better, at least a government is accountable to the people.
In theory, but how many governments can actually be held accountable? The power imbalance is often too great for the people to hold anyone accountable. In many countries, the system is rigged.
The question was how is it better. Sure there is a question of how much accountability there is with the government…but there is zero with a billionaire.
Replace government with billionaire and your statement is made even more true.
Controlled by governments or controlled by corpos and the super rich? I say there’s hardly an improvement.
No, but through the existence of both options, you can get more plurality than by using one individual option.
If we’re talking about corporations I can only assume you mean options in how to get fucked.
Government can throw you in jail.
Have you heard about this corporation called the church of Latter Day Saints?
Corporate throws you on the street to starve.
They tried that with me once, but I showed them and got a different job.
You got another one job at the the other starlink?
There’s a reason the system requires a certain percentage of unemployment to keep working. There’s also a reason there’s homeless people and children living in flood security.
Yeah, cables or radio waves, it’s the same thing in the end.
What we need (IMO) is another layer on top if the classic internet with encryption and hookers.
This is what IPSec OE was created to solve, but nobody uses it – instead using things like TLS, which also provides protocol aware non-repudiation.
Like i2p or TOR?
Or Tenfingers (my network protocol for decentralised web pages and data) ofc 😌
that depends on who controls the space internet
That is the catch. Ideally they wouldn’t automatically cooperate with the dictators on the ground, but that hasn’t been the case.
Secret cabal of space lizard people.
Watch out for the Jewish space lasers.
Are the Jewish space lasers more dangerous than the Hibernian and Caledonia Rods of god. Im asking incase we need to up our tonnage to match the Jews. I know for a fact we are lagging behind Suomen Helios lance.
Don’t forget that Musk is also the one who intentionally blocked paid service from Ukraine during a critical moment in the early days of Russia’s current genocide, because Musk sucks up to Putin. Dude needs to answer for his actions.
Yep, fuck Musk
Fuck Musk
Sounds like a French parfum.
Watch out they might actually launch it
actionscrimesSeriously, why hasn’t there been an investigation since he’s meddling directly with government affairs and working for a foreign enemy?
It’s not worth the cost of ruining LEO and the environmental effects of them burning up in the atmosphere
it’s already been blocked in ukraine by musk at the request of putin
You can block or disrupt communications with LEO.
But you’d need the blessing of the country’s government to pump out that much interference continuously.Oh? What about internet controlled by a billionaire who makes sure his toxic website featuring his version of “free speech” is always available to protect his profits and spread his bullshit while undermining the policies of a sovereign state?
So much better than the evil government.
That’s better than a dictator who only wants to protect his own power. At least a billionaire can be bought.
A billionaire can’t be bought, they got billions. It’s the dictator that can be bought.
A billionaire chases what gets them the most money. The public can manipulate them by making them lose money. A dictator wants power, which really can only be countered with mass violence.
Musk has lost a tremendous amount of money between X and his negative effect on Tesla sales. Do you feel this has “manipulated” him into being a better person? 🤣
Even with all the losses, he is still the richest man in the world by more than $50 billion. Musk dumped more than half of his Tesla stock and is focusing more on SpaceX now.
Yes, that’s my point. Losing money didn’t “influence” him.
Is Musk doing anything to help people living in dictatorships access information? Or is this just happening in Brazil?
Starlink launched in Africa in 2023, so that covers a few oppressive governments.
.
What the heck do you think a dictator is? A billionaire running a country.
I think there is a difference in mentality between people who chase power and people who chase money. Bull Gates certainly chases money, but he’s not trying to take over a country somewhere.
That may be so, but nonetheless they overlap often enough.
This Bill Gates?
Are you saying he is trying to take over the country by buying all the land? Seems like he’s just using land as an investment.
I’m saying that buying insane amounts of agricultural land gives him and his family a permanent rent-seeking position over a basic necessity, so yeah, he is taking over a part of the world.
How many people is the billionaire incarcerating?
Good question. He definitely seems like the type that would have a dungeon with captives.
He got his wealth because his parents owned a slave-powered diamond mine.
Also, as he hides his money and doesn’t pay taxes the US government is overburdened and one of their tools is relying on prisons for free labor.
Soooo actually quite a lot.
Let everyone incarcerated go and see how that works out for you. Not saying everyone deserves to be in there, but go on. Give it a try.
You also forget that billionaires are wealth, and so is any dictator. They both seek to protect that wealth, so it doesn’t matter in the end. A billionaire buys his politicians and you get the same result. You start threatening their money and power and they’ll come after you, whether you want equal rights or sometimes just clean water.
That’s an arbitrary metric. What about internet across oceans, or across forests? Blocking content is a question of why and what. Shouldn’t we be able to block child exploitation websites? That is to say, of course we can, and it’s very easy. The only question is whether you want that kind of censorship to be up to your service provider or your government.
Governments tend to block things like facts about genocides they have committed and opposing political opinions. I would hope things like child exploitation could be managed at the host level.
Do you have any idea how eagerly AT&T and Comcast would block half the internet if they had the tiniest profit motive to do so? I wonder how long left wing websites would remain online if it weren’t illegal for multinational corporations to block them.
That’s the thing, they is no profit motive to block wide swaths of public viewpoint because that will cost them customers. They will quickly lose business to a competitor who doesn’t do that. (Local monopolies aside, which is an entirely different problem).
I wish you were right, but you’re not. Internet providers have monopolies because the cost of laying fiber or launching satellites is so high. That’s precisely what the argument over net neutrality has been about.
They have monopolies because we let them. I say nationalize all communication infrastructure.
What i love about musk is that he is the best bad example. Maybe someday he’ll start a war with some country and then people will start to understand that no single person or group should hold this much power. Because there are also a handful of other people and groups with the same resources who choose to hide in the background.
The Corporate Wars. 🥲
Logically, now they have to ban Starlink too.
Seems like it’s on the table
Tensions between Brazil and Elon Musk’s business empire ratcheted up further as the country’s telecoms regulator threatened to sanction his satellite broadband company Starlink hours after its top court stood behind a controversial decision to ban social network X from the country.
A senior official at telecommunications regulator Anatel said sanctions against Starlink for noncompliance could include the revocation of its license to operate in Brazil.
I’m curious: what would that mean, within Brazil’s borders? Would they be able to prevent Starlink from being used? Broadcast a Starlink jamming signal over the whole country? Or turn it into a diplomatic issue, with the US State Department getting involved?
Starlink backed down and blocked Twitter as requested.
the world needs to ban starlink
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Remember that time Musk expressed that he was in favor of free speech? Then he censored content on his platform for the Turkish government?
Yes, then he got a bunch of backlash and now he’s doing the reverse. And people are losing their shit even more
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. People will find a reason to hate him.
I think he’s just a hypocrite who will say anything and contradict it when it’s better for him.
Have you ever seen his trans daughter who he disowned for being trans talk about him? He’s not a good dude. For years when I first heard of him I was tricked too. Look into him some more man. He’s a piece of shit.
Here’s some reasons:
Taking credit for other people 's work. I don’t think he actually founded any of the companies he owns besides the boring company. That hasn’t done anything right? Lol
Having emotional temper tantrums where he tries to ruin people’s lives, for example that diver he called a pedophile for no reason.
Again his hypocrisy around his political beliefs. For example how he champions “Free speech” but also will censor words like ‘cis’. It’s clear to me and many others that “free speech” to Elon just means people are free to say what Elon wants.
Personally I don’t give a shit about Musk. I don’t care about any celebrities but I try to not hate any of them because that’s way too much attention I’m giving to someone who is so insignificant to me. I’m just always aware of them from being on these social media sites because there’s always a legion of fans and haters. Maybe I’m really just complaining about social media and wish we were in the time of MySpace. Things were simple then and the internet was wild and untamed.
I mean you give enough of a shit to comment twice so 🤷♂️
I don’t think a multibillionaire is just a celebrity. The companies he owns and the power he has there aside, he also controls many politicians through lobbying deals.
I feel you on missing the days of the old web so I think you should know it’s tech billionaires like musk who have destroyed it. Whether through their direct control over platforms like Twitter or by how they have regulated the web through lobbying of our politicians.
Weird how he’s helping the far right in both cases.
- complying with Erdogan
- refusing to block fascists
Musk complies where his business lies. China, India, America, Europe…
Where there’s Tesla there’s Twitter regulation.
It bothers me that he is trying to protect nazis.
Weird how his free speech absolutism only applies to Nazis, huh?
Elon needs racist tweets he can respond to with thinking face emojis, so he brought the Nazis back on.
🤔
Brazil has an extradition agreement with the United States. Would love to see that shit get put to use.
That’s not how extradition works. You have to give people up to the US criminal system. They don’t reciprocate. They just promise not to coup your government.
Extradition treaties are almost always reciprocal and this particular treaty is publicly available. No public treaty is going to include a promise not to coup another government because of the obvious political consequences of admitting you might to everyone else.
Extradition treaties are almost always reciprocal
In theory. But rarely in practice.
Why would the US strain their relationship with Brazil over Musk? Politically, it makes sense to extradite him.
Also imma need a citation on how extradition works, I searched the wiki and couldn’t find anything.
Why would the US strain their relationship with Brazil over Musk?
He’s in deep with the US financial sector and the MAGA GOP base.
I’m failing to see the connection with Brazil here.
What would the backlash be from the US financial sector?
Why would MAGA be mad about the US Government extraditing an African American?
What would the backlash be from the US financial sector?
Lobbyists would lean on federal and state legislators to impose retaliatory sanctions.
Why would MAGA be mad about the US Government extraditing an African American?
Because they see him as on their “team”.
So in your mind the possibility of Musk being extradited could lead to those colossal outcomes?
The starlink thing died yesterday but, I can’t imagine a reaction this strong from the US financial sector or MAGA.
I disagree with the intensity of this response, if it were to happen.
So in your mind the possibility of Musk being extradited could lead to those colossal outcomes?
In my mind he just doesn’t get extradited, because it’s too much trouble and sets a bad standard for American billionaires.
Politically I don’t think it makes sense to extradite him because politics is just money nowadays. If money weren’t in bed so thoroughly with politics I would agree but unfortunately here in america, bribery is legal and not looked down upon because we just decided to call it lobbying instead of bribing.
They should kick his shit out of the country
Can’t really do that when his shit is quite literally in space floating above your country in orbit.
They can easily make it illegal for them to operate there.
Yeah the Brazilian space police is gonna shoot down them satellites.
And then they will clean up the fueltas.
I love fairytales about competence in Brazil.
Yeah they still rely on base stations to transmit/receive the signals.
It most probably can work directly with satellites, but I don’t think some user is going to put the effort into setting up a direct system (∵ high cost), just to use the bloated site, X is (∵ low throughput internet).
Like growing drugs? Good luck bro
Welcome to the world where money has more power than laws and governments. It’ll all work out fine, I’m sure.
His shit is also on the ground. Do you think the satellites beam an internet connection directly into a laptop or something? That said, finding and seizing the individual receivers seems unlikely. They’ve already instituted a hefty fine (equivalent to more a year’s average salary) for even using a VPN to little effect.
Beyond that, they’ve also threatened to seize all local assets/offices and emplacements if Starlink doesn’t comply. There’s several dozen as I recall.
My sweet child, do you think cocaine just appears? No, they need massive farms to produce. Brazil can’t even crack down on literal acres of fields of coca plants. You think they’re going to find some inconspicuous boxes that receive internet from space?
Also do you think your router is just a plastic box with magic inside?
The plastic box with plastic probably has a notable RF signal which can be traced?
The plastic box with plastic is made from plastic.
So?
Indeed.
No, I don’t think they’re going to bother finding the receivers, which is what I said?
Reading comprehension: it’s not for everybody.
I think it’s you that needs to go back to this thread and actually use your eyes little girl
K.
You’re so fucking sexy I just cannot contain myself.
Roundhouse kick then
Bunch of space junk fucking up the world’s view of the stars.
So Nazi’s eh? I hate Nazi’s. Let’s unravel this knotted beast a bit. If the Brazilian citizens are posting illegal content, arrest them. Forcefully cut off their internet, -snip snip- done, seize their bank accounts, works on Russia. It should never be the job of a privately owned corporation to enforce the law when the law is perfectly capable of neutralizing the offending entities and enforcing the rules it’s own damn self, are they going to make it illegal for Walmart to sell them a cell phone? Couldn’t they just create a new account with a new email over VPN? Wouldn’t it be easier if the citizens are breaking the law to arrest them rather than take away their Twitter account? I am not a fan of that fat musky sum bitch, but there is literally no reason that judge has to go after X(I really hate that name), other than he’s swinging his dick around and doesn’t like to be told to put some damn underwear on. Arrest the citizens if they are breaking the law, if they aren’t breaking the law then what gives anyone the right to silence them? Just an egomaniac judge with no actual laws backing him and a tiny shvance facing off against a megalomaniac with a tiny shvance that consistently protects only the free speech he agrees with. There. Unknotted. If the people of Brazil want Nazi propaganda to end in a prison sentence, it should be law, and then all Twitter has to do is the same thing it does with other illegal content, turn over the user to the authorities and wash their hands of the mess. Not some judge unilaterally making free speech decisions(even in Brazil)
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That Nazi propaganda spreading user? Elon Musk.
It’s perfectly valid to seize or forbid account that break the law. And if a company facilitates others to break the law you ask them to stop. In this case the company refused to… so now they are in trouble too.
If Brazil had a law that requires cars to be limited to 100km/h then they need to modify their cars to meet the law. And with ota updates do this in that country. If someone imports a car and it’s not updated even though the manufacturer knows it is in that country, they also breech the law.
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The problem is that this IS the blueprint.
Blocking twitter? That’s fine. People generally hate twitter so whatever.
But starlink? That is a genuinely okay product (so long as it isn’t too sunny where you live…) and actually does serve a niche for people who can’t get better internet. And it rapidly will go from “The government blocked twitter. I guess that is probably good?” to “The government is taking away internet from thousands of people and this is literally worse than china”
In this case, assuming Brazil made the right call, I’d look at it more as “Starlink is taking away internet from thousands of people” instead of “the government”. Nobody can or should expect any government to allow businesses to operate within their border that blatantly disregards legal orders. If people lose access to the internet the blame is on Starlink’s hubris, not the government’s insistence on the rule of law.
That said, I have not been following this story and am cautious enough about Brazil’s government that I’m not taking any stance here over which side is right or wrong.
Yeah. It’s really sad that a lot of people on remote areas in the Amazon will be affected by a ban on starlink. They also spent quite a bit of money for Brazil’s standards on the equipment as well.
Still, this shouldn’t be the reason to put anyone above the law, no one should be above a county’s law.
If this actually happens it may really backfire on Elon and all companies he’s involved, at least in Brazil.
As you invested your money in one of his companies products and now because of his massive ego/lack of mental stability you either lost support, functionality or access to parts (for maintenance of hardware) and I doubt any of his companies would pay their users for this inconvenience. This would make using any of the products he’s involved with too risky, better to just use a more “mentally stable” competitor even if the service or product is slightly worse.
You are assuming people look at this rationally. Rather than “the politicians hate a guy and I suffer”
It is very similar to the logic by which people go out of their way to bend over backwards to support anti-consumer practices if ti is for the game or movie they want to watch.
Brazilian here, the court couldn’t find anyone in Brazil that represents X to pay the fines and to block the accounts spreading lies about the anti-democratic events of January of last year. Since Elon Musk is one of the major shareholder of both companies they connected the dots and Starlink has representatives in Brazil their account was frozen in order to get the fines owed by Musk’s other company. Later the government found out Starlink was not blocking access to X as any other internet provided was instructed to do so.
Musk is a big supporter of Far-right Brazilians including former president Bolsonaro and his political allies. It was during Bolsonaro’s government that Brazilian army switched to use Starlink.
The free speech agenda that Musk is advertising is not the main issue here but a government that goes against Musks interests and his companies.
Free speech has jack all to do with it.
What matters are people who suddenly can’t watch kitty cat videos… or organize military operations. They don’t care about misinformation campaigns and fines. They care that suddenly The Government has taken something away from them.
Edit: Updated the title to reflect the update in the story. Seeing some comments from people who haven’t actually read the article.
why is everyone banning everything?
Stop it! Let people have fun on the internet!
Because they broke the law.
The law being, “Thou shalt not have fun on the internet” ?
I mean, you’re being facetious, but no, the law being “your company must have a legal representative to be within our borders”
X was told about it, given a deadline, they missed the deadline, they can’t be in Brazil
Actions have consequences
your company must have a legal representative to be within our borders
Interesting. Yeah, I was too lazy to look it up and instead cracked a joke.
But, isn’t that law kinda expensive? Or does it only apply in certain conditions (like company size or sth)?
And what’s stopping Musk from just putting an underpaid intern for compliance?They require a representative in order to establish a chain of responsibility that deals with crime, censorship, social health (lol), public relations, etc.
It does come down to a combination of size, influence, services rendered, and other factors.
He could put a random kid in charge but it would make it worse, like putting a busboy in a chef’s hat during Rush hour.
What I find difficult to understand, is that they require said chap to be physically in the country.
Unless said law only works in case the company has a physical presence in the country (which it does, in this case), I feel it hard to get the logic to apply it to an internet service.It’s a common thing in many countries. It’s, among other things, a liability issue.
If your “country #1” company does business in “country #2” then what laws apply to them?
In order to distinguish clear lines what “country #2” requires is a representative for the company to be in the country. If the company breaks “country #2”'s laws then the representative is liable for it.
Generally to be a representative you have to have a measurable stake in the transaction, you can’t just be a random Jimbo, so it usually falls to a law firm (or an entity that works with one), mainly because if you need people to help your company follow the law, then they should know the law.
If the company breaks the law, the firm has to deal with that, so it’s a risk for them.
In this case, X needed that representative, either they couldn’t or wouldn’t find one, therefore Brazil said “we can’t hold you accountable to our laws, so get out of our country.”
I’m super, MEGA, oversimplifying, and I’m no expert, but this is my best understanding.
how are people supposed to pay starlink if their accounts are frozen? is starlink offering free internet?
Supposedly Starlink is maintaining service for existing accounts, even if they can’t bill them ATM.
Somehow I don’t think that’ll last all that long.
As the article says, yes.
W
This statement was later retracted. The Engadget article was redacted accordingly.
Do people here not generally dislike government censorship? The root of this seems to be x refusing the country’s government’s demands to ban certain people
Try typing the word “cisgender” into Twitter.
Don’t have or plan to get twitter, care to enlighten me?
Well, they called it a slur. That’s good enough a reason.
That’s why I don’t like the idea of censoring slurs. Anything can be one.
If some chap at X, determining which word is considered a slur, says, “I watched a YouTube video with <public personality> telling someone else not to call them ‘cisgender’.”, that’s probably good enough to add it to the list, while most of them not actually matching the dictionary definition for “slur”.The point comes as to where to draw the line and the company gets to choose.
It’s not a slur, is the thing. Not any more than “transgender” is and, in fact, less so.
They know this but they are pretending otherwise, as if Elongated Muskrat were a power mad 1990s forum moderator.
pretending otherwise
Welcome to modern society. Everybody loves to pretend.
The people pretending to be offended by some random mistaken word uttered by another.
Those pretending to care about something that they are using “politically correct” words for.
Microsoft pretending to care about OSS, in the hopes of getting some highly performant devs.
…Yes, it’s not a slur. But someone told another person to not call them a “cis woman” on camera and now it is whatever, you call it.
The thing is, I dislike censorship in general. Corporate or government. Yes it’s the corp’s prerogative, but we’re allowed to criticize corporate censorship and hypocrisy regarding censorship.
I don’t get why people defend censorship by powerful/monopolistic companies run by billionaires while criticizing censorship by the government. They’re not that different.
I don’t get why people defend censorship by powerful/monopolistic companies
I won’t get that either.
But unlike the Government, which is at least, supposed to care about us when making their policies,
the companies don’t. Whatever gets them more money[1] is what wins.Well, said companies will realise in time[2] when it hurts them where they care about and will have to consider changing stances.
My personal opinion is that for “edge cases” like cisgender, I should be the one who decides what “slurs” I see or don’t see on the feed, rather than some shmuck twitter mod who watched a YouTube video or whatever.
I mean it’s still not an edge case. It’s just not.
Like, insert that “That’s not how this works, that isn’t how any of this works” meme here.
That’s pretty disgusting
X doesn’t seem to have any issue censoring accounts for Musk’s autocratic buddies like Erdogan, so let’s not try and pretend that he’s above caving in to government censorship. He’s just pissed off in this case that he’s being asked to do it in a way that would hurt his friends in Brazil. The site has been called out over the last several years multiple times for refusing to take any steps to moderate misinformation spread by Bolsonaro and his political allies in attempts to undermine democracy and influence the results of the last election, like the endless claims of electronic voting being insecure in the lead up to the last elections, Bolsonaro’s COVID denialism and many other examples.
Absolutely not trying to take the side of musk here, dude’s a shitter. Fact of the matter remains the government in this case is using its power to remove people from the public eye, I would dislike that regardless of what platform or who was refusing to do it
the government in this case is using its power to remove people from the public eye
These aren’t people, they’re accounts. And the accounts in question appear to have been coordinating the attack on the Brazilian congressional office in 2023. This is comparable to, say, the traffic on Parlor shortly before the J6 riot in the US.
Organized violence would not be tolerated as “free speech” in Brazil or the US. No government or civilian authority considers active insurrection a protected category of speech. These accounts were effectively coordinating a military coup. They weren’t just trash talking the new President and his party.
Blocking traffic from an enemy military force is a military response to a rival military operation. And Musk’s refusal to shut the accounts down amounts to taking a side in a military campaign.
Is it though? Refusing to take a side isn’t the same as taking a side. You should never be obligated to remove content the government doesn’t like, you should merely be required to provide data about accounts to local authorities to assist in investigations. If someone is posting illegal content, they should be accountable to the law, but it should always be the host’s discretion whether to remove that content.
Refusing to take a side isn’t the same as taking a side.
He’s been outspoken in his support for the Bolsonaro movement
And that’s fine, and I certainly disagree with Musk on that. However, it’s only an issue if the platform discriminates content due to that bias.
Is it from a foreign country trying to take over? In which case that does change things, had assumed this was some kind of revolution from within the country
We don’t dislike government censorship of CSAM. it’s all a spectrum based on the legitimacy of the government order and the legitimacy of the tech billionaire’s refusal to abide.
Honestly, while I think CSAM is disgusting, I am kind of against government censorship of it. Some go so far as to ban anything resembling CSAM, including imagery that looks like it, but doesn’t actually involve a real child. The problem is the abuse required to create it, but if that abuse didn’t happen, there is no crime, and it should therefore be completely legal.
The same goes with free speech more broadly. The speech itself should never be illegal, but it should be usable as evidence of another crime. A threat of violence is the crime, and that should be prosecuted, but that shouldn’t mean the government should force the host to censor the speech, that should be at the host’s discretion. What the government can do is subpoena information relevant to the investigation, but IMO it shouldn’t compel any entity to remove content.
That said, Brazilian law isn’t the same as US law, and X and Space X should respect the laws of all of the countries in which they operate.
That’s…actually a pretty reasonable take. Fuck Musk, but you’ve convinced me that government censorship is just a bad thing in general and that should apply to Musk as much as anyone else.
I do think there’s a counter argument to be made that the resources involved in setting up fake accounts to spread bullshit are trivial compared to the resources required to track down and prosecute account owners for crimes, so in a practical sense banning accounts is possibly the only thing one can do (especially if the account owners are foreign). If you give lies the same freedom as truth, you tend to end up with 10 lies for every truth.
Op’s take is not reasonable imo- if you think threats are harmful enough to prosecute they should also be harmful enough to censor.
Maybe a more soft form of censorship, such as hiding them behind a cw and a “user was vanned for this post” label rather than outright removal, but you can’t just do nothing.
Prosecution implies a trial before punishment. Censorship is immediate punishment based solely on the judgment of the authorities. That’s not a minor difference.
Exactly. If a judge states that an individual is no longer allowed on SM, then I absolutely understand banning the account and removing their posts. However, until justice has been served, it’s 100% the platform’s call, and I think platforms should err on the side of allowing speech.
I realize I’m jumping back and forth between sides here, but that’s because it’s a complex problem and I haven’t made my mind up. But that said, to return to the previous point…if you need a court order to ban every spammer and troll, you’ll drown in spam and propaganda. The legal system can’t keep up.
I’m willing to bet the people that government wanted were not infact posting CSAM, I’m pretty sure even x would ban them of its own volition pretty quickly if they were doing that
They weren’t, it was just the example at the furthest end of the spectrum. But your framing of “if it was REALLY bad, Twitter would ban it” can not be the solution. We have legitimate governments tasked with governing based on the will of the people, it’s not better to just let Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg decide the law.
They would ban it if was really bad because it’s illegal for that stuff to exist and they will face much more serious issues as a company if they don’t remove it, they’re not doing it out of the goodness of they’re hearts
Also not a good look for a company to be hosting that stuff in general for their PR, which is determined entirely by the general population’s reaction to their actions and not a small group of individuals in powerful positions
It is well established that the right to free speech is NOT unlimited, and the “fire in a crowded theater” people tend to be the loudest complainers. Brazil is a sovereign nation entitled to its own interpretation of how to handle free speech protections, and X has repeatedly made the claim they obey the laws of the countries in which it operates.
Also, it’s disingenuous of anybody to take X’s side on this over free speech when the past two years they have complied with basically every single request from every government for personal identifying information for any user. People are serving multi-decade prison sentences for their speech because X has refused to stand up to, for example, the government of Saudi Arabia when demanding the identities of state critics.
So it’s okay to kowtow to governments when they want to violate the right to privacy, but not when they want to shut down speech which is outside a sovereign nation’s definition of free speech? And let’s be clear - we were talking about 7 users.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say it’s reasonable for a company to violate ONE right for a government under absolutely unethical circumstances and not another under SLIGHTLY debatable circumstances and expect anybody to take your position seriously. X is not a freedom fighter, and it’s not an actor for justice. It’s a partisan cesspool run by a man who is stacking the deck for the side he wants when it serves his interests.
I’m by no means defending musk or X. I think they shouldn’t have banned those users and also think they shouldn’t have revealed info about users who are not actively threatening to hurt someone
My statement was that in general it concerns me that governments are able to silence anybody in this way, which is where federation comes in handy
You make it seem like this is an epidemic of silencing.
First of all, this was 7 users. Secondly, it was such a controversial request that it had to be escalated all the way to the country’s Supreme Court. Thirdly, the request and its consequences were then reevaluated, and all 5 members of the Supreme Court review unanimously upheld the decision.
There’s obviously no such thing as a perfect system, but that is about as close to a fair review process as one can get, and I would argue it’s better than the alternatives of “the whims of the platform owner” or “completely unmoderated anarchy”.
Furthermore, they’re NOT silenced. This is deplatforming. Absolutely NOTHING is stopping these 7 people from setting up their own Mastodon instances and writing whatever they want. That’s not an option for the jailed dissidents X turned over.
Lastly, Brazil is a sovereign democratic nation within its rights to enforce its laws as it sees fit within its borders, and if the people find it that egregious they can change their leaders. X is an unaccountable cudgel of a single man who is taking it upon himself to conduct his own judicial review of the laws of a sovereign nation and act with impunity. If he were a nation, this would be an act of war. The sheer gall of it is utterly appalling.
Is this another country using x to recruit people for their takeover or people from inside the country?
I’m going to assume it’s from within otherwise it’s a moot point and they should obviously be blocked
However I would argue that speaking out against the government is the most important thing to protect, that’s kinda the whole point it exists
If they’re threatening/planning violent crime out in the open they’re pretty dumb and makes it easy for the country to arrest them for it once they have enough evidence they’re actually planning to do it, banning them off social media is not the solution imo
Again, as I said I’m not in any way endorsing X or saying it’s a freedom fighter, not saying they haven’t done terrible anti freedom of speech things, just that this kind of behaviour from governments towards any social media platform would concern me
Well, you are forgetting another category, which is incitement to violence. That falls under the same blanket speech as the aforementioned “yelling fire in a crowded theater”, and in 2024, the law is far, far behind the danger that this poses in most countries, limiting most governments in many cases to trying to stop each individual act inspired by the source rather than being able to go after the source directly. Someone does not have to directly commit violence to be responsible for it, and while I COMPLETELY agree with you that this IS a slippery slope that COULD be abused, in this case, the entire process is transparent and public with multiple exhausted avenues for appeal, and in the end, it doesn’t even SILENCE the users in question OR request they change their speech or ideas, it simply denies them access to a particular platform. As to the banning of X, even if you disagree with the particular banning of these 7 accounts, the removal from the country isn’t so much about free speech element as the idea that X has made it clear and public that they have no intention of obeying the law in Brazil, and it’s unquestioned that there ARE times when it is absolutely clear that a government SHOULD have the right to shut down information. What if X had a post next week giving Lula’s location, itinerary, security details, and clear lines of sight at a rally, and the government demanded legally that it be taken down? X has shown that if it disagrees with the legal judgement that this information should be taken down, they may refuse. It is totally reasonable for the Brazilian government NOT to accommodate the platform given its stance.
You know what you make a good point, I suppose if there’s been appropriate chance for people to stop it from happening it’s fair enough
