Late on Friday afternoon, Justice Alexandre de Moraes – who has been engaged in a dispute with X’s owner, Elon Musk, since April – ordered the “immediate, complete and total suspension of X’s operations” in the country, “until all court orders … are complied with, fines are duly paid, and a new legal representative for the company is appointed in the country”.

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

In an interview with the TV channel Globonews, the agency’s president, Carlos Manuel Baigorri, said the order had already been passed on to internet providers.

“Since we’re talking about more than 20,000 companies, each will have its own implementation time, but … we expect that probably over the weekend all companies will be able to implement the block,” he said.

Justice Moraes also summoned Apple and Google to “implement technological barriers to prevent the use of the X app by users of the iOS and Android systems” and to block the use of virtual private network (VPN) applications.

The decision imposes a daily fine of R$50,000 (£6,800) on individuals and companies that attempt to continue using X via VPN.

92 points

sounds feasible except the “blocking the use of vpn apps” part?

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46 points

Yeah, that line was particularly concerning. I’m all for watching Elon get a Brazilian beatdown, but that feels like a pretty large overstep.

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79 points

Justice Moraes had also said that any person in Brazil who tried to still use X via common privacy software called a virtual private network, or VPN, could be fined nearly $9,000 a day. But after swift backlash across Brazil, including from academics who have supported him, he reversed that move in an amended order late Friday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/world/americas/brazil-elon-musk-x-blocked.html

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36 points

Good to see someone listening to people more knowledgeable than them.

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15 points
*

At best that’s just unclear. Blocking VPNs isn’t impossible, just impractical. And it’s not like Brazil just became China. At worst, the just made accessing X impracticality expensive for its users— which, in Brazil, is a lot of people. In typical Brazilian fashion, they’re hitting Elon in the wallet.

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0 points

The main goal is to get the convicted offenders to not make posts anymore, and if they do the law will be able to find and punish them after the fact.

I’m talking about the accounts that the courts asked X to suspend but X denied.

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12 points

Yeah, this left a bad taste.

At least he revoked this section of the decision a couple hours later.

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-8 points

Why? VPN is not a magic bullet. Wait, did you believe their marketing??

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7 points
*

can you elaborate?

as it is, your comment is not comprehensible. Why what? Whose marketing? Marketing for VPN? “Magic bullet” for what purpose?

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-3 points
*

VPNs can be blocked by governments or worse, the data can be decrypted giving you a false sense of security. In any case if the governments wants to it can easily see if you connect to a VPN and give you trouble just for that. Same goes for TOR.

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52 points

When you’re too corrupt, even for Brazil, that really does say something.

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55 points

They’re more WhatsApp people than Twitter people anyway.

But this is pretty standard legal stuff. Musk just doesn’t think he has to send a lawyer down to argue his case. He can blow it off, thinking that he’s simply above the law.

It isn’t even corruption, per say. It’s just entitlement slamming into another state’s basic sovereignty.

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7 points

They’re more WhatsApp people than Twitter people anyway.

I thought they are orkut people?

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9 points

Orkut lmao that’s a deep cut. Remember my Brasilian friend growing up using it and I was like wtf is this.

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4 points
*

Well, maybe I’m just too GenX, but, to me, that’s a distinction without a difference. WhatsApp is texting with extra steps, and Twitter is for Nazis. I’ve never used the former and gave up the latter along with FB and insta early on during covid. Reddit was my last social whatever, and I jumped that ship last June for this last shout.

I’ve never had tiktaky or snapsnore. Most of my time on my phone is spent either here or listening to news podcasts— which is pretty much what I did as a teenager: listening to NPR as my morning routine then a news/music mix throughout the day.

Hmmm…. How unusual and a little confusing to be both impressed and disappointed in oneself… well that’s why some of our best paid scientists are furiously genetically engineering new strains of cannabis! So I don’t have to deal with this shit!

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6 points

WhatsApp is texting with extra steps, and Twitter is for Nazis.

No shortage of Nazis on Whatsapp. And not the Discount Donny Groypers, either. Real Boys From Brazil. People with an actual Nazi pedigree.

How unusual and a little confusing to be both impressed and disappointed in oneself

Eh. We all eat from the trough of ideology.

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6 points

You know how Americans have ZERO base to stand on talking about other countries anymore? Didn’t get the memo? You guys are the bottom of the barrel now in every aspect. Sheesh.

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48 points

Spread it to Everybody from Brazil: Leave Xitter, JOIN MASTODON!

How to join Mastodon:

https://www.followchain.org/join-mastodon/

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37 points

There is some misleading information in there. Probably better to just get straight to the point with the ‘standard’ https://joinmastodon.org/ link.

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23 points

I think that site has incorrect information. They wrote “you need to sign up separately on every server on Mastodon to see their community posts” but surely that’s the opposite of what the fediverse is about? Mastodon’s server page even says that with a single account you can see everything.

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-8 points

How about not using “Social Media” at all? Too out there?

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12 points

Are you aware that Lemmy is social media too?

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8 points

People seem to be going to bluesky, even the president is there

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2 points

Is Xitter pronounced Shitter? Makes South Park prophetic again.

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2 points

Of course it is.

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31 points
28 points

Obrigado

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10 points

Tchau, Elon

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