X and Starlink face $1M in daily fines for alleged ban evasion in Brazil
(cnbc.com)42 points by JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago
42 points by JumpCrisscross 3 hours ago
They are not blocking Cloudflare or Fastly.
They are blocking X IPs being used on Cloudflare and Fastly.
These CDNs agreed with Anatel, to reserve IPs exclusively to X, so IPs can block X without collateral damage, that's all.
That said, Cloudflare is also blocking X. Cloudflare Warp doesn't open X.com anymore, neither iCloud Relay's (which seems to use Cloudflare).
Cloudflare already isolated X on their network so that Brazil can block just X again.
Nation states will always win against a corporation. They are authorized to use force, both physical and economical. They also control access to their market.
I don't think it's always true. It seems like it would have to depend on how the nation state responds to its citizens when the nation state does things like break large portions of the web. And what actual economic leverage the state has (or could bring to bear) over the company.
Losing the citizenry might be more politically damaging faster than economically damaging to X/Starlink.
> Losing the citizenry might be more politically damaging faster than economically damaging to X/Starlink.
Provide evidence Brazil will lose the citizenry over this. It appears that Brazil has been surgical in directing access restrictions to X; millions of X social followers have moved to Bluesky [1], and while Starlink customers might be impacted (~250k terminals) who cannot access X, they are not a majority in any sense (based on ground station count; 250k vs a Brazil population of 215.3 million people).
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's also easy to get caught in the trap to believe that other people think how one's own self thinks [2].
None of this is “well conceived”. De Moraes is way too high on his own supply.
How? He's just enforcing the law in Brazil
Elon is the one who cut off Twitter's 5th biggest market because misinformation is the opium of fascist-wannabees like him
EDIT: Perhaps some context of what Elon did is in order?
https://time.com/7016537/brazil-blocks-elon-musk-x-twitter-c...
Here's a good explanation of how the Brazilian Supreme Court did a creative and novel interpretation of the law to give itself powers to investigate and regulate the internet without law enforcement or legislative/executive involvent.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382
That's not enforcing the law.
As documented by the New York Times, the first thing the judge did after getting powers to censor was to call a Brazilian magazine article about the person that gave him those powers 'fake news' and got it removed. It later turned out that article was true so he had egg on his face and had to retract his censorship order.
> To run the investigation, Mr. Toffoli tapped Mr. Moraes, 53, an intense former federal justice minister and constitutional law professor who had joined the court in 2017.
> In his first action, Mr. Moraes ordered a Brazilian magazine, Crusoé, to remove an online article that showed links between Mr. Toffoli and a corruption investigation. Mr. Moraes called it “fake news.”
> Mr. Moraes later lifted the order after legal documents proved the article was accurate.
Political censorship is unconstitutional in Brazil. These judges are after Bolsonaro and his supporters for the political speech they engaged in. Blatant political censorship.
The constitution literally contains the words:
> Any and all censorship of political and artistic nature is prohibited
It's really not that hard to understand. Any citizen can understand this. It's just that it doesn't matter what the law says. Because there's no court above them, the law becomes whatever they say it is.
> "How? He's just enforcing the law in Brazil"
> "Elon is the one who cut off Twitter's 5th biggest market because misinformation is the opium of fascist-wannabees like him"
You don't seem to be sure on what is going on or even know what 'fascist' means.
Anything can be declared as "misinformation" these days which is the what many governments commonly use to enforce censorship and for its citizens to continue to believe one narrative for governments to then continue to lie to its citizens.
Why do you want this?
This seems like a worthwhile fight. I'm surprised to see someone taking it up, though, most of the time company's just seem to comply with government mandated censorship.
You do realize that the "censorship" being mentioned is of literal terrorists?
Terrorism: the use of violence to achieve political aims (if you are not yourself a recognized nation).
This is exactly what these people did in their coup attempt. I for one would rather not have another coup organized on Twitter, thank you very much.
(and before anyone brings it up - even if someone works for the PR or leadership arms of a terrorist organization, rather than actually performing the violence personally, that does not mean they stop being a terrorist)
Remember kids, free speech means that everyone is contractually obligated to algorithmically broadcast everything you say, even if it is literal terrorism, to as many people as possible. Failure to do this is literally 1984.
(/s)
So you think only government censorship is a speech violation?
Well cool! You'll happen to be on the right side in this case, because in this case the censor is a government.
Well, perhaps I layered in too much sarcasm, but the idea is that it's not a free speech violation for the government to say someone can't post on social media. That person is still free to say it, just not to have it broadcast to everyone.
"Censoring" literal misinformation is a bad thing now?
https://time.com/7016537/brazil-blocks-elon-musk-x-twitter-c...
Brazil's judge lays it out quite reasonably?
Yes, because who gets to decide what is or is not misinformation?
I know in the post-truth era everyone can pretend their bubble is fact, but come on. Some things actually are misinformation.
What should be shocking business is right in front of our noses: Other reports say investors in Musk's aquisition of Twitter are on the hook for billions of dollars.
How do they (and other investors in X) stand by while Musk sacrifices large markets for personal political battles? It's not just Brazil - look at how he gives up advertising revenue in order to promote far-right hate speech on X.
More broadly, if a corporation invests in DEI or ESG, which are relatively cheap, there's an uproar that it's not appropriate for businesses. If Musk (or others) lose large amounts for partisan political battles, it's accepted. In part I'm just saying the obvious: the uproars about DEI and ESG is has nothing to do with business or profits, and is really about reactionary politics. On the other hand, it's still shocking that investors give sacrifice this much money for Musk's and other people's partisan 'cause'.
Perhaps they feel they have much wealth to gain from the 'cause', which arguably is about big business and wealth seizing political power (see the Lewis Powell memo and, for example: https://the.levernews.com/master-plan/ ).
According to the article, they've previously collected by just withdrawing money directly from X's and/or Starlink's local accounts:
> Brazil previously withdrew money for fines it levied against X from the accounts of X and Starlink at financial institutions in the country.
Could they get sued in a different country? I know when Argentina defaulted on bonds a naval ship was impounded in Ghana https://archive.is/Q7pB9
> Brazil's national telecommunication agency, Anatel, has been ordered by de Moraes to prevent access to the platform by blocking Cloudflare as well as Fastly and EdgeUno servers, and others that the court said had been "created to circumvent" a suspension of X in Brazil.
Blocking Cloudflare and Fastly seems like a reactionary measure that is not exactly well conceived.