>“Although X may not be a top priority for most advertisers in Brazil, the platform needs them more than they need it.”
Really does seem like it came down to this point. Musk hoped Brazilian users would get angry with the government, and they just downloaded bluesky instead. Musk lost a month of Brazilian revenue and gained nothing.
I followed some Brazilians on my (mostly unused) bluesky account. Will be interesting to see if they stick around there, return to twitter, or use both.
> Musk hoped Brazilian users would get angry with the government
It’s like when he claimed he’d “document in great detail” how the boycotting advertisers would kill Twitter, and was smugly confident “Earth” would care. Absolutely delusional. The interviewer even understandably struggled with that line of reasoning.
Is that really true? I think platforms have strong network effects that make migrations to alternatives (like Bluesky) very difficult. However, a government shutdown of that platform, with the power/threat of violence, can break through that network effect by making the platform inaccessible to both sides (the people making tweets and their audience).
This shows the true value of the platform to end users is near zero.
Is that really true? I think platforms have strong network effects that make migrations to alternatives (like Bluesky) very difficult.
The network effect has negative value to the user; if the platform went away, everyone would migrate to a better platform, and everyone would be better off. The network effect is an artificial barrier to competition that only benefits the owner of said network, and it only works because collective action is harder than collective inaction.
There’s no technical reason different social media networks couldn’t be made to interoperate. The barriers that keep other platforms from building off of a successful network are largely legal, not natural.
I’m also equating these kinds of network effects with other artificial barriers to competition, like price fixing or mandatory non-compete agreements.
Migrations are indeed difficult but not at all impossible it seems. It feels like a tipping point has been reached and activity of what I would call high quality posters is now at such a level on bluesky that I can’t read it all from the relatively few people I follow. Even my own posts are getting traction that they didn’t until very recently. And people seem to be joining now not only because Musk drove them away but because it’s worth it on its own merits.
The influx of Brazilian users to BlueSky was pretty public(1).
> What's the word for posts like these online?
The word is “post”. When someone writes a thing and puts it online with or without a supporting body of evidence they are engaged in posting.
For example you have posited without evidence that there is a need for a special word for a post without evidence. I don’t know if that claim is true or false but it is, undoubtedly, a post
It is customary to learn the local slang for posts when you’re riding the information superhighway but in a pinch everyone knows what a post is, as it is the product that comes from the process of posters posting.
Sticking to fundamentals can be good when for example a literal insane person tries to tell you that an Xer Xes Xs on X. That’s just not true, nobody believes that wording is right.
If somebody wants to interpret a mundane opinion online as some sort of arcane summoning incantation or volley of memetic warfare that is up to the reader, but “a ton of Brazilians signed up for bluesky” is generally accepted as fact and “it doesn’t seem like the fight with the Brazilian government really accomplished anything” is a pretty understandable opinion that doesn’t require a lot of mental gymnastics or bad faith to arrive at given public information.
It’s just a post. Somebody posted their opinion on the internet. What it becomes inside a specific reader’s mind is neither here nor there
“Speaking as if something is true” is how people often share opinions — especially mundane ones that a person wouldn’t expect to be picked apart
It appears as though GP found the word they were looking for, and would like to call that post a “prayer for the downfall of Elon Musk”… so I’m going to guess that the question was a weird attempt to mask a fandom complaint as a heady question about language, because “Why don’t we have a special word for when people aren’t as nice to Elon as I want them to be?” would sound downright insane
In general, I think you're looking for self-fulfilling prophecy. Hearing the prophecy induces behavior that leads to the prophecy coming true.
Although I'm not sure sigmar's observation fits this criteria as it's a discussion of events that already happened, or that it will be disseminated enough to change the future if you consider it as a prediction of future events should some other widely substitute service cross the Brazilian courts.
Ex-Twitter wasn't the first service to get blocked in Brazil. Brazilians know from experience that if the service they use gets blocked, they should look for a similar service that's not blocked, and get on with their life. When the one they used comes back, they often go back, but it probably depends on relative merits. If you're a competing service, it's a great way to get a lot of exposure, but sometimes the load is too much and you leave a poor impression.
I don’t think any comment anyone makes here is going to will anything into existence.
And it’s a fact that Musk lost Brazilian revenue, gained nothing and that some percentage of users would’ve switched to Bluesky, Threads etc. during the block.
I guess this confirms almost no one understood your original question. There's a phrase that got more popular in the past 5-10 years, but I guess still has pretty limited spread (I don't see it even on urban dictionary):
here we go again: criminal speech != free speech. A lot of, if not all of Alexandre de Moraes's decisions are around a real crime that happened Jan 8 2022 with a real coup attempt in Brazil (federal buildings were severely damaged). Some people pretend this didn't happen and come here and hide arguments behind free speech. These "censored" political influencers are investigated under the umbrella of this major case based on people who potentially had a major impact on influencing very simple people to commit crimes against democracy. Brazilian democracy is still at risk and should get support from digital platforms so we don't end up in a digital wild-wild west. This is still under secrecy investigation and the decisions cannot be judged by people who don't even have access to all the case material to begin with. I'm happy that Elon did the right thing. Hope he keeps collaborating with the law so we all can live in peace.
There was no "coup attempt". There was a protest. Occupying and damaging Brasília buildings is essentially the standard brazilian protest. It's happened before.
You call it a coup because they wanted the military to seize power. They didn't try to seize power for themselves, they wanted the military to rule over them. That's a valid political position. A coup attempt is the military actually trying something. An actual coup is the military succeeding at it. A thousand people with bibles and flags is not a coup or even an attempt at a coup. It's just a protest.
I don't believe he is only talking about the occupation of the parliament, which in my opinion could be considered a coup attempt, although a very disorganized and ultimately failed attempt.
But he is also talking about the leaked documents and dossiers that are being investigated as means to a coup. Organized by some high level military and other influential people, including the previous president.
Even the biased Wikipedia article you cited calls it a protest.
> Protesters invade the National Congress of Brazil
There were plenty of reasons to doubt the results, and these judges made numerous contributions to those reasons with their actions. They resisted two attempts from our representatives to add an anonymous paper trail to the "unquestionable" voting machines. They disproportionately censored Bolsonaro and his supporters in the months leading up to the election, called everything they said "fake news". Then they rendered him ineligible due to his perfectly reasonable criticism of the voting machines, out of all the stupid things he said. Then they went to public events to show off about it and say they were personally responsible for defeating him. How do you expect people to accept this as legitimate?
As far as I'm concerned, these judges launched the real and successful coup all the way back in 2019 when they usurped power and created a secret tribunal to investigate, prosecute, judge, sentence and punish crimes against themselves. The constitution says that secret tribunals are prohibited, yet they get away with it because they're the highest court and there's no one who can override them. Politicians who can impeach these judges are no doubt corrupt and all it takes to intimidate them is the unearthing of some scandal they were no doubt part of. Thus our representatives do not matter, the laws they write do not matter, these unelected judges do whatever they want and police obeys them. Power does not emanate from us, it is concetrated in their pens.
Due to this context, I see those people as blameless protesters of an unjust system who went on to become political prisoners of these judges. Who are you supposed to turn to when you believe the supreme court is violating the constitution? These fools turned to the "heroic" brazilian military and begged them on their knees to sort this mess out. The rest is history.
It's morbid fascination for me. Up until a few years ago his outward facing persona/"brand" was just a regular tech billionaire occasionally spinning up interesting new stuff. And then almost overnight it's like he had some kind of mental break and started saying and doing completely nonsensical things. Why? What happened? Was he always like this behind the scenes and it was hidden from us or did something happen to him?
a) Twitter was and to a lesser extent still is an important platform for news and information. And his role in furthering misinformation and division has influenced many people.
b) Musk’s unpredictable antics e.g. going to Trump rallys and setting up SuperPAC, being a government contractor and talking about Kamala assassinations is controversial and often newsworthy.
c) Rumors about Musk working with JD Vance and Peter Thiel to effectively run the government on behalf of Trump.
> Twitter/X was standing up for free speech by fighting back on this censorship, which does not seem constitutional per Brazil’s own laws. But I guess at some point their profits were more important than principles.
If this surprises you, you have not been paying attention. It’s the same ridiculous song and dance every time. He makes a big fuss of free speech and being an absolutist about it, but always caves in fast.
These links don’t make a good case Twitter/X has a publicly stated policy of following the laws in local jurisdictions. They refuse orders that violate the local laws. Turkey has authoritarian censorship so following their local law isn’t controversial. The commonly cited case of India is bizarre since Twitter under Musk literally fought the Indian government in courts over censorship. Unfortunately India legalized certain forms of censorship with new laws that led to them losing the case. That’s why they ended up following the local laws.
Calling Musk hypocritical on free speech is nonsensical. Twitter is far less censored and much more permissive since the acquisition, and that’s a good thing for speech and democracy. The guardian opinion article is just unhinged.
> These links don’t make a good case Twitter/X has a publicly stated policy of following the laws in local jurisdictions. They refuse orders that violate the local laws.
Yet the old Twitter fought and won against far more of these orders in these places, whereas Musks Twitter follows them more readily. Why do you think that is? I see two possibilities:
1) the governments have suddenly improved their approach for these orders, making them harder to win against in court
2) Twitter isn't fighting against these orders as much anymore
I certainly know which option seems more likely...
>Twitter/X was standing up for free speech by fighting back on this censorship, which does not seem constitutional per Brazil’s own laws. But I guess at some point their profits were more important than principles.
X cannot credibly maintain a pretense of standing up for free speech principles when the so-called "free speech absolutist" at the helm of X is curiously quiet about the world's largest censorship machine.
> curiously quiet about the world's largest censorship machine
Why is it a pretense? Is X more free than before? Are they doing more to speak up in defense of free speech? Yes and yes. There’s no pretense around it. You can be a free speech absolutist, speak up in its defense, and also be smart about which battles you fight.
The constitutional right to free speech in Brazil is not an absolute right. In fact, it is a well-known fact to Brazilian legal scholars and practitioners that there are no absolute rights under Brazilian law - every right must be equally respected.
In particular, Brazilian law does not grant freedom of expression for political speech that has clearly defamatory intent, constitutes an insult, makes disparaging judgments or represents denigrating criticism. That may not be the letter of the law, but it is its spirit, as set by precedent and academic literature.
Keep in mind that this specific judge has the backing of the majority of the Supreme Court and, at the very least, the tacit support of congressmen who have the power to impeach him in case of abuses.
> That may not be the letter of the law, but it is its spirit, as set by precedent and academic literature.
The letter of the law matters. It’s not just the freedom of speech by the way. The Brazilian constitution also prohibits secret tribunals, which is what Moraes is doing with censorship under gag orders.
> Keep in mind that this specific judge has the backing of the majority of the Supreme Court and, at the very least, the tacit support of congressmen who have the power to impeach him in case of abuses.
The rest of the federal court is probably too scared of him and the sitting government to speak up. Its’s not a sign of anything.
I respect your opinion, but that is really not how the Brazilian legal system works.
For instance, the constitution says that “the home is the inviolable refuge of the individual”, but this applies not only to “homes” per se, but also to every closed space where one may expect privacy.
Another example: the constitution says that only “Brazilians and foreigners residing in the country” have rights, but foreign tourists and legal entities have rights, too.
It goes both ways: the spirit of the law extends some rights and limits others.
> The Brazilian constitution also prohibits secret tribunals, which is what Moraes is doing with censorship under gag orders.
Secret court orders are a common exception virtually everywhere and have absolutely nothing to do with “secret tribunals”. Brazil’s constitution explicitly allows this exception in article 93, paragraph IX, in order to preserve the privacy of interested parties. In addition, secret orders are common in cases in which public orders would have hampered the effectiveness of said orders.
He does not have the support from majority of congress..
But congress will not impeach him while there is a left wing president appointing his replacement..
Even tough right wing politicians make a theater of wanting him impeached, and even send requests to impeach him to congress in the back is all negotiated that those impeach requests will not go forward..
There was congress election in 2022, the congress back then is not the same as congress today..
And regardless of who indicated him, the right is not happy with him and would gladly get him replaced, but they will not while a left wing president is the one appointing his replacement..
Not really going on the point if what the Justice did is legal or not, but they won't impeach, because the Justices are the one who judge the politicians, and the majority of BR politicians, including right-wings, are corrupt.
This is just a political fight to see who's got more power. Elon Musk isn’t really defending free speech — he follows authoritarian orders in other countries [1]. He’s just looking out for his own political interests and turning X into a playground for his political ideology.
And regarding the ban, yeah, there are definitely violations of free speech, just like in a bunch of other democracies, like the U.S., which banned TikTok [2].
No, this is false. Censorship was made legal in India through various changes in law in the last few years. Twitter actually was fighting the Indian government in courts over censorship orders after Musk’s acquisition. They lost the case ultimately, and that was in part because the laws were changed to grant the government those powers explicitly. That’s different from the false narrative that they just cave into orders elsewhere. The censorship performed by Moraes is clearly unconstitutional - it violates numerous parts of the constitution, just within article 5.
No idea why you're getting downvoted. You're right.
The brazilian constitution literally contains the words:
> Any and all censorship of political and artistic nature is prohibited
These accounts were engaged in political speech. The judge ordered their banishment. This is a form of censorship of political nature. Therefore what he did is unconstitutional.
It's a very simple argument that I make every time the topic comes up. Nobody has refuted it to this day. I've had people on this site cite lesser laws, irrelevant laws, appeals to the authority of the judge... But they haven't refuted it.
It is indeed a recognized exception in Brazil. Also, our constitutions grants absolute freedom to communicate facts, while free expression is limited that way.
What is messed up here is how those things happened. It's not even clear if it's about hate speech, because the the censoring orders are themselves secret.
But then, the way Twitter handled things was messed up too.
Expression of thought is free. As brazilians we don't have the right to censor others, we have the right to answer and to be compensated for damages. The original insult is not censored.
I cited all the relevant parts of the constitution in a previous post:
I could not find the exception you spoke of in the constitution.
I agree with you about the irregular and illegal nature of the orders. The judge did not even give the defense lawyers the details. This is not how a civilized nation does things.
What appears to be some historic details concerning the transition from last century's military dictatorship to the democracy.
I still cannot find it.
Anyway...
I'm not exactly a fan of the "it's the court's interpretation" argument. It's an appeal to authority. The authority of these judges is questionable. They aren't real judges whose knowledge of law was tested by competition via concurso público. They're there due to their political connections. When it comes to correct application of the law, I'd sooner trust the judges in the lower courts than the current president's former lawyer.
I'm also not a fan of the word "interpretation". It opens the door to the selective and creative applications of the law. These judges usurped power when they started legislating instead of applying the law as written. I've had actual lawyers complain to my face about cases where these judges just made up their own interpretation instead of doing what the written text says.
I really want to see the article you speak of so that I can at least try to understand the logic they're using.
AFAIK, it's usually based on the item 8: repudiation of terrorism and racism. But this one decision may be about something else, nobody knows.
Those are not details about the transition from the dictatorship. They are expected to be followed by all of the remaining of the text. And yeah, that translation is correct, the actual text doesn't say that at all.
IMO, the entire thing is very bullshitty. There is an entire idea of "legal principles", taken out of context from random places on the Constitution, and the entire Judiciary upholds them, except when they decide not to. That started as soon as the constitution-writing assembly was dismissed.
(Just to add, even our first "democratically elected" president after the new constitution was picked by a decision like that.)
I see it now. Thank you. I don't agree with their interpretation but I see what you're getting at.
> the entire Judiciary upholds them, except when they decide not to
I started smelling bullshit too when I noticed this. These judges are not impartial at all.
> That started as soon as the constitution-writing assembly was dismissed.
How sad...
The popular saying here is "doctors think they're gods, judges know it". So things have always worked that way. Realizing this now as an adult is extremely demoralizing and disillusioning.
Where, in the brazilian constitution, does it say that you can censor people if they "promote violence" in their political speech?
Where is this exception? Because I looked for it and I didn't find it. Every thread about this topic, I ask my fellow brazilians to cite this exception and I have yet to get an actual response. Best I've got was an anti-nazism law which is inferior to the constitution and therefore irrelevant, and should have been declared unconstitutional anyway. Not because I support nazism but because banning nazism, a political ideology, would open the door to banning other political ideologies.
So unless someone explains to me what this "exception" is, I won't be convinced.
It doesn't matter what lesser laws say if the constitution says otherwise. Constitution says manifestation of thought is free and censorship is illegal.
> Term IX.
> expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific, and communication activity is free, independent of any censorship or license
If your speech hurts somebody, they get to answer and to be made whole. The original insult is not censored. We see it all the time with politicians insulting and threatening each other. The other party sues, judiciary applies a fine, that's all there is to it.
Sure.. but this law was never challenged and thus it was never deemed unconstitutional.. Something only the supreme court can do when the proper process is started..
Until this happen the courts must assume the law is valid and apply it as such..
In the history of Constitutions, no constitution explicitly states that violent speech is protected. Because until now, they've never had to...it's always been understood. Indeed, the the First Congress of the U.S. passed the Sedition Act just a few years after America was formed and it remained law until 1920 (when it was repealed by Congress).
For more recent examples, yelling "fire" in a crowded venue is also prohibited (this example is given to law students). It is important to understand that the law separates the content of the speech from the act it represents, so saying the word "fire" is allowed; what is prohibited is the act of doing something that will inflict harm on others by causing terror and mayhem.
As most constitutions are based on the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. history is relevant to Brazil because it demonstrates that no Constitution protects unfettered speech. To apply the above to what is happening in Brazil: the words are protected, but the act of promoting violence is prohibited. Thus, the far-right extremists' accounts are censored (because they are using those words to engage in the act of inciting violence) but everyone else can say what they said because other people aren't trying to incite violence when they quote the extremists.
The punishment for incitation of crime is either a fine or imprisonment for up to 6 months. If they're commiting that crime, then fine or arrest them. Don't mess with their thoughts though. As far as I'm concerned, they are and should be free to think and say whatever they want, even if they think violence should be promoted. Democracy is not justified in defending itself until the very second somebody picks up a weapon and tries to put an end to it.
If we start censoring people who "call for violence" as part of their politics, oh boy, do I have a huge list of malefactors for these judges. Plenty of openly violent communist revolutionaries in this country, after all. I'm sure this supreme court would do nothing about them even if presented with such a list, though. After all there is a communist judge among them. This is a country where nazis go straight to jail but where socialists and communists walk the soil completely unpunished.
That's my biggest issue with decisions like these: the selectivity. Why is it that only one side gets to be extreme? This is just wrongthink.
> These accounts were engaged in political speech. The judge ordered their banishment.
Wrong. The accounts with orders for blocking were pushing a doxxing campaign against police investigators tasked with the January 8 coup attempt investigation. Doxxing/threats probably aren't protected speech anywhere in the world.
And where did you read this? The orders are secret. The accusations are secret. The lawyers involved are secret. I read them when they were published and the only name in there is Alexandre de Moraes.
And I certainly did not witness anything you speak of. I don't remember reading any news of any "doxxing campaign" either. As far as I know, these are just politician accounts.
Someone here on HN once asked who the people named in the court orders were. I found nothing related to what you said when I looked them up on the internet.
Worst guy in there seems to be the guy who told Bolsonaro to order the military to close down the supreme court. Inciting the armed forces against the other powers is a crime but censoring him for it is still unconstitutional. They even censored their wives and daughters.
lol. The sad part is that I as non-Brazilian had do tell a Brazilian friend that there was no way the genius would get away with making fun of officials of a country such a Brazil.
I am happy they held their own against a bully such the genius. As for the internal issues in Brazil, I told my friend that Elon doesn’t give a crap about it, those issues are for the people in Brazil to solve.
Elon Musk doesn't have an army, and Brazil does. So the guys with guns win?
China made it clear that boycotting a country doesn't accomplish anything. Nobody supporting Elon on speech is upset that he bluffed and lost... that's life.
The fact that anyone takes what Musk says about free speech at face value is astounding to me.
The number of shenanigans that have occurred on Twitter to make some speech both freer and less free depending on the ideological bent of its operator is so voluminous that it cannot be easily counted.
I don't really know what it is that Musk does on his platform or why he does it. The Twitter-Brazil incident however is about free speech. Brazilian constitution says that any and all censorship of political speech is prohibited. These were political accounts. This judge, a government official, ordered their banishment from the platform. Political censorship.
I’m not familiar with the specifics but a cursory examination indicates that the accounts were publishing libel.
Libel is not now, has never been, and will never be protected speech.
It also seems that Twitter failed on at least one occasion to appoint legal representation and I don’t know if that means counsel or a business point of contact so if this was whatever Brazil’s version of a default judgement is, that makes it even dumber.
Regardless, if someone (in this case Musk) throws their lot in with people who unambiguously attempted a coup d’etat in the name of free speech, they should be examined more critically than usual.
My examination indicated it was all due to "fake news" as determined by these judges. This is the first time I'm encountering the libel/defamation argument. I suppose it's impossible to know since I didn't witness it in real time and everything is secret.
I don't believe what happened was a coup attempt. They occupied Brasília buildings, that's the standard brazillian protest, happened many times before. They wanted the military to seize power, and the military refused. They didn't try to seize power for themselves, they wanted the military to rule over them. That's a valid political position. A coup attempt is the military actually trying something. An actual coup is the military succeeding at it.
Devil's advocate: what the government says only matters because of fear of repercussion if they're not heeded. Because they're the guys with the guns, and the (increasingly under Lula) exclusive right to use them.
> Elon Musk doesn't have an army, and Brazil does.
You're kidding, right? Brazilian army? What a joke.
Besides, Musk is friends with US politicians. Recently showed up in a photo besides Trump himself.
After this Twitter debacle, I've seen news about some republicans proposing laws that would deny the passports of foreign officials which implement censorship. A law that more or less targets these judges. A law that is essentially beneath the notice of most americans. It caused these brazilian judges here to basically throw a temper tantrum in public. "Unacceptable", one of them called it. As if there was even a single thing he could do about it.
Every year the US puts us in a little copyright infringement watchlist, so it's not like they don't care when our actions affect the american economy. I wonder how they feel about a brazilian judge outright stealing millions from american companies via completely arbitrary fines for not complying with orders whose legality is questionable.
Really does seem like it came down to this point. Musk hoped Brazilian users would get angry with the government, and they just downloaded bluesky instead. Musk lost a month of Brazilian revenue and gained nothing.
I followed some Brazilians on my (mostly unused) bluesky account. Will be interesting to see if they stick around there, return to twitter, or use both.