Brazil Unblocks X (npr.org) 39
X has been restored in Brazil after being shut down nationwide for over a month. According to court documents released today, X ultimately complied with all of Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes' demands. "They included blocking certain accounts from the platform, paying outstanding fines and naming a legal representative in the country," reports NPR. "Failure to do the latter had triggered the suspension." From the report: Elon Musk's X was blocked blocked on Aug. 30 in the highly online country of 213 million people -- and one of X's biggest markets, with estimates of its user base ranging from 20 to 40 million. De Moraes ordered the shutdown after a monthslong dispute with Musk over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Musk had disparaged de Moraes, calling him an authoritarian and a censor, even though his rulings, including X's suspension, were repeatedly upheld by his peers.
Brazilian law requires foreign companies to have a local legal representative to receive notifications of court decisions and swiftly take any requisite action -- particularly, in X's case, the takedown of accounts. Conceicao was first named X's legal representative in April and resigned four months later. The company named her to the same job on Sep. 20, according to the public filing with the Sao Paulo commercial registry. In an apparent effort to shield Conceicao from potential violations by X -- and risking arrest -- a clause has been written into Conceicao's new representation agreement that she must follow Brazilian law and court decisions, and that any legal responsibility she assumes on X's behalf requires prior instruction from the company in writing, according to the company's filing.
There is nothing illegal or suspect about using a company like BR4Business for legal representation, but it shows that X is doing the bare minimum to operate in the country, said Fabio de Sa e Silva, a lawyer and associate professor of International and Brazilian Studies at the University of Oklahoma. "It doesn't demonstrate an intention to truly engage with the country. Take Meta, for example, and Google. They have an office, a government relations department, precisely to interact with public authorities and discuss Brazil's regulatory policies concerning their businesses," Silva added. [...] "The concern now is what comes next and how X, once back in operation, will manage to meet the demands of the market and local authorities without creating new tensions," he said.
Brazilian law requires foreign companies to have a local legal representative to receive notifications of court decisions and swiftly take any requisite action -- particularly, in X's case, the takedown of accounts. Conceicao was first named X's legal representative in April and resigned four months later. The company named her to the same job on Sep. 20, according to the public filing with the Sao Paulo commercial registry. In an apparent effort to shield Conceicao from potential violations by X -- and risking arrest -- a clause has been written into Conceicao's new representation agreement that she must follow Brazilian law and court decisions, and that any legal responsibility she assumes on X's behalf requires prior instruction from the company in writing, according to the company's filing.
There is nothing illegal or suspect about using a company like BR4Business for legal representation, but it shows that X is doing the bare minimum to operate in the country, said Fabio de Sa e Silva, a lawyer and associate professor of International and Brazilian Studies at the University of Oklahoma. "It doesn't demonstrate an intention to truly engage with the country. Take Meta, for example, and Google. They have an office, a government relations department, precisely to interact with public authorities and discuss Brazil's regulatory policies concerning their businesses," Silva added. [...] "The concern now is what comes next and how X, once back in operation, will manage to meet the demands of the market and local authorities without creating new tensions," he said.
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Sure, lets seem: ,but later it was discarded by the supreme court of that country even in the previous president, named Bolsonaro, being totally against it and tried to fire the supreme court judges, something he can't do)
- on one side we have several judges of a country where the justice is independent of administrative side (you even had a judge that tried to convict the current president, named Lula
- on the other side, Elon, Trump supporters and Bolsonaro (a local copycat of Trump, by the way) supporter
Re:Brazil has Free Speech (Score:5, Informative)
Free speech does not mean free from consequences. The people you referenced were calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Brazil as well as his assassination. They were from the authoritarian former president, Bolsonaro. Leon didn't, and doesn't, believe in the rule of law where court orders need to be followed. He tried, and lost [cnn.com], the same argument in the U.S. when he was prohibited from warning the convicted felon the DOJ was requesting all the posts about trying to overthrow the election.
The reasons the company was reinstated and allowed to operate were they provided an in-country representative, they blocked the requested accounts, and paid the fine after initially sending it to the wrong bank [slashdot.org] (deliberately, no doubt).
But wait, there's more. We have to remember when he rolled over for Turkey when ordered to block accounts of opposition candidates in the days before the election, and even made a wild ass excuse [imgur.com] that it was either comply with the directive or be booted from the entire country. In fact, in response to rolling over, Twitter's own Global Government Affairs account stated:
In response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today.
Huh, in response to legal process. Funny how he had no problem acquiescing to that legal process when it came from an authoritarian, but whined and pissed and threw a hissy fit when it came from a democratic court.
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ohh my God, you don't even make any sense, your mind is so brainwashed that you can't even make a logical counter point and simply ignore everything that is said... fine, you win, you are right... now go drink until you drop, maybe drunk you make more sense
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Free speech does not mean free from consequences.
I'm not seeing anyone suggesting that. However, what I do know is that when people say that, they are generally anti-free speech authoritarians who are too chicken shit to actually say so. Stop all the tap dancing and tell us you really just hate free speech and want any angle to attack it and get you some of those sweet sweet EU hate speech laws.
Re: Brazil has Free Speech (Score:2)
Generally I'm of the same observation. "But not freedom from consequences" typically translates to "I'm fine with/I like these particular consequences".
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Remind me - when were the censors ever the good guys?
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Brazil ... judges were asking X to ban accounts civilians including sitting members of congress
Ours or theirs? 'Cause, as an American, I can understand at least one of those. :-)
Maybe not approve of, but certainly understand.
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Brazil has free speech laws very similar to the US
I'm so sick of people talking about Freedom of Speech in absolute terms. Yes Brazil has free speech. No it is not absolute, there are most definitely restrictions on speech. In fact in Brazil the restrictions on speech are voluminous enough to warrant a dedicated Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] including some obvious ones that exist in many countries such as the manufacture and sale or distribution of swastikas to the downright bizarre:"It is a crime, punishable by imprisonment of one (1)
Oh Bugger. (Score:2)
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Now?
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Now he's really going to be insufferable.
Yup, now he has another reason to jump for joy -- other than when he thought they were, I'm guessing, getting ice cream [independent.co.uk] after the rally? :-)
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I saw that and my mind went straight to Tom Cruise and the sofa incident.
Way better to imagine that than JD Vance and a sofa incident. :-)
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(No, not fuck. Not fuck!)
Jusrt like 80 years ago... (Score:3)
Bribery complete (Score:2)
Re: Elon won't forget this slight (Score:2)
I don't think Elon has any significant memory in regards to "slights" like this. He's impulsive and completely hooked on his own product which means he'll be jumping on new things to visibly attach himself to every month for his background chorus of "X" fans to cheer him to.
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Who wrote this story? (Score:2)
Was it written by Alexandre de Moraes's publicity department? It glosses over the fact that the reason Musk didn't name a legal representative after the one he had resigned is that she resigned because de Moraes threatened to arrest his employees in Brazil. This may also be why Musk doesn't "demonstrate an intention to truly engage with the country"... if they're going to arrest your people to get leverage on you, best to keep the country at arms length.
The demands de Moraes made were not all made public
Demands met before election (Score:2)