this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he hopes the crisis surrounding the social network X in Brazil might teach the world that “it isn’t obliged to put up with [Elon] Musk’s far-right free-for-all just because he is rich”.

Lula’s comments to the network CNN Brasil came after the supreme court voted unanimously on Monday to uphold the ban on X, which is now largely inaccessible in one of its biggest global markets.

The suspension was first ordered on Friday as a result of the company’s refusal to obey court orders requiring the removal of profiles accused of spreading disinformation and for the social network to name a local legal representative.

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[–] [email protected] 190 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Lula is so fucking great. He's literally just backing up the courts that are applying the law fairly and as-written, which is more than I can say for most leaders.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Don't get me wrong, Lula is correct on this. But he's still a scummy politician who has a questionable past

[–] [email protected] 86 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Raising 20 million Brazilians out of poverty, while making his country the 8th largest economy in the world? I'm sure he's as corrupt as any Brazilian politician, but none of them have anything that comes even close to that to show for it.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago

It's politics. You could have some shoplifting charge from 40 years ago and people will yell about how you're the worst and attempt to invalid everything you do because of it.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

He also got arrested for one of the largest corruption scandals in the history of Brazil. It’s a complex person. We can criticize his vices and praise his virtues at the same time.

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[–] [email protected] 170 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Fucking thank you. It’s nice to see at least some heads of state actually have the stones to tell Phony Stark to fuck off.

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[–] [email protected] 119 points 6 months ago (1 children)

And it doesn’t mean Musk has any valid and useful intelligence. He got handed money early in life, got lucky with PayPal, and now thinks because of all of that, his views on the world matter. They don’t. He’s a piece of shit and the world should reject him among many others.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 6 months ago

And still salty enough to rename twitter to the company that merged with PayPal since PayPal was such a better name

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com_(bank)

Also ask Musk fanboys who Greg Kouri is and they have no idea

[–] [email protected] 109 points 6 months ago (11 children)

Over the past year Musk has removed all masks and clearly believes he can operate beyond the law. His motives are clearly to watch the world burn. He is an extremely dangerous, unpredictable and powerful man, threatening democracy across the globe.

Our governments need to protect us from him. Brazil's being brave here, I hope they're just the first.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

No. You're giving him too much credit and actually making it seem like mr. Musk is in any sense of the word capable of self-reflection. He is a burned out, incompetent tech-junkie and nothing but a hypeman for expensive toys someone else develops. He might be allegedly blackmailed by Russian kompromat or just plainly stupid enough to believe the propagandistic image of strong Putin/Russia. The only scary thing about him is, he never takes a fall for his numerous blunders. Yet, before first-worlders become the ones paying for his mistakes he will rest comfortably upon his dollar throne.

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[–] [email protected] 103 points 6 months ago (3 children)

This is why it’s important to have decentralized social media. We cannot have anyone unilaterally deciding what gets talked about and what doesn’t.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Ordinarily, I might agree. However, this suspension is because musk refused to appoint a legal representative for the company in Brazil, IAW Brazilian law. That's a reasonable ask for a company that's actively doing business in the country. If a billionaire* crybaby refuses to follow the law, then he gets to deal with the consequences. FA meet FO.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (20 children)

Your right to free speech ends when it turns into terrorism, racism or a call for a coup.

There are some things that should be banned, such as the twitter accounts that promoted the attempt at a coup in Brazil in Jan 8 2023.

These are the accounts that the judge asked to be banned. After Twitter didn't comply they started sending fines and eventually outright banning it.

Free speech doesn't mean you can say literally anything. It means the government cannot punish you for your political views. But they can, and must punish racism and anti-democracy speech.

Also, it's a misconception that a decentralized service cannot be banned. In fact it's not hard at all

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 6 months ago (2 children)

More like Far-right-free fall

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 6 months ago (1 children)

His wealth also doesn't mean we need to accept his wealth as valid.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

It's just make believe numbers.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 6 months ago (3 children)

That's so Weird how Next Week the US will Find Oil in Brazil and oust Lula!

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (7 children)

Don't ask why the disgraced former judge Sergio Moro, who jailed Lula in 2018, causing the rise of Ballswallower, was invited by the US State Department in the oughts to do their "anti-terrorism" training.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 6 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 months ago (1 children)

In so many movies that revolves around what would happen if a multi billionaire... Turned EVIL

Well now we know

[–] [email protected] 31 points 6 months ago

You don't get to a billion dollars by being ethical in the first place. At the very least, they are all willing to exploit the labour of hundreds or thousands or more.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (18 children)

Listen, Musk is an asshole who has created large problems at Xitter. There is absolutely no debate on that.

HOWEVER I have to wonder if most of the people cheering what's happening in Brazil actually know what's going on?

Did you know that one single Judge has been given the power the censor the Internet? Do you know that no justification needs to be released to the public about WHY a person, account, or post is being censored, removed, or banned? Do you know that this Judge actually banned Apple and Google from distributing any VPN Software before they were forced to change the order due to public outcry? Do you know that the fines this Judge is issuing have no basis in the law?

Even prominent Brazilian Attorneys, like Thiago Amparo, who previously supported this Judge and their work are now saying that it's going too far.

Brazil now has an Internet Censor who obviously doesn't understand the technology who is issuing censorship orders that require no justification and to the surprise of no one his orders are helpful almost entirely to the current President specifically and the ruling party in general.

Here's an archive link to the New York Times giving more details.

So yeah, screw Musk but also screw whatever unholy state censorship is going on down in Brazil too.

[–] [email protected] 95 points 6 months ago (3 children)

The initial ruling was by a single judge but it was upheld yesterday by a panel of five supreme court justices:

Members of Brazil’s supreme court have unanimously voted to uphold the ban on X, after Elon Musk’s refusal to comply with local laws led to the social network being blocked in one of its biggest markets.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Did you know that one single Judge has been given the power the censor the Internet? Do you know that no justification needs to be released to the public about WHY a person, account, or post is being censored, removed, or banned?

Replace judge with CEO and ask the question again.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (11 children)

A. There's an appeals process.

B. If we accept a Chinese version of Google then there's no reason we can't accept a Brazilian version of X.

Musk could have blocked those accounts from being visible in Brazil and then had his legal representative argue that's compliance. That would put the ball back in Brazil's court. Instead Tony Stark wannabe is trying to just go around the government, violating it's sovereignty. Something most countries take pretty poorly.

So we actually don't know if Brazil would have required X to ban them globally. Nobody tested that.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Actual discussion of the post: -1 score

Stupid play on words comment disparaging the right: highest score in comment section

Wish we could see how legitimate upvotes and downvotes are or if lemmy is a lot of teenagers who dont have the patience.

Im uneducated on the politics of brazil. I think censoring might be conducted without a fully evil intent, but people's ability to reason about validity of information should be fostered instead of disallowing certain speech. ~~Scary to think you'd be arrested for using a social media site.~~ Thats not okay. And its brazils decisions regardless of musk.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Disinformation should be downvoted. Then corrected.

For example, you said you could be arrested for using a social media site. There's nothing in that decision that implies this.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Scary to think you'd be arrested for using a social media site.

Scary to think conservatives have power anywhere on planet earth, given how they just make random shit up and then accuse people of that made up bullshit whenever they want. Scary to think how conservatism is the single biggest threat to humanity and should be eradicated. Scary to think.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I hope that my country's goverment makes the other countries realise how dangerous this man is.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

brazilian futurism was not what I expected for 2024 but I'm pleasantly surprised

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (11 children)

Except it does. Money = speech = power and he has the most of any human.

Downvote this all you want, it won't change the reality that Musk is more powerful than any other human currently alive on earth. I hate him too, but you can't deny his power.

[–] [email protected] 70 points 6 months ago

Turns out that if you are not a Right-wing shit head you can legislate and govern against people with money that try to do as they will :O

[–] [email protected] 57 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Doesn't seem like it's working out so well for him on Brazil...

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (20 children)

The three most powerful people on earth are the US President, the President of the Russian Federation, and any Captain of an Ohio class submarine

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The assesment that he's the wealthiest person on earth is pretty dubious, actually. The analyses which list the worlds wealthiest people always are, because they have to decide what counts as wealth and how to count it.

Normally that's fairly easy, but for very powerful people (who, as you point out, the people at the top of those lists are) it gets murky because of things like stocks and options which they could liquidate in theory, but which would crash in value if they tried to actually do so. Does it still count as wealth if it only exists so long as you don't spend it?

There are also people who's wealth isn't held in any currency, or gold, or stocks. How do you measure the wealth or power of a sovereign king, or any other kind of dictator? You certainly can't neatly put it in a scale alongside people who just have a dragon's horde of cash somewhere, that wouldn't be comparing like for like

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

SCOTUS told America the President could have anyone killed as long as it was an official act. And you're still going to say the guy with an indirect access to influence has more power?

Hah.

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