Brazilian here. If anyone wants a great introduction to the context and the bigger picture, there's this great article from the NYT in 2022, written by an excellent reporter who lives in Brazil. I highly recommend this article to anyone who hasn't lived in Brazil for the last 10 years:
"To Defend Democracy, Is Brazil’s Top Court Going Too Far?"
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/world/americas/bolsonaro-...
It covers the judge at the center of the current issue: "Mr. Moraes has jailed five people without a trial for posts on social media that he said attacked Brazil’s institutions. He has also ordered social networks to remove thousands of posts and videos with little room for appeal. And this year, 10 of the court’s 11 justices sentenced a congressman to nearly nine years in prison for making what they said were threats against them in a livestream."
Rumble has been blocked in Brazil for over a year, and WhatsApp and Telegram have been briefly blocked multiple times.
From the same article:
The title is a leading question. I can come up with different titles for the same article or topic, that could be leading somewhere else:
1. Brazil Top Court's Actions to Defend Democracy
2. A View On Moraes' Decisions In Face Of The Crisis Created By Bolsonaro
3. Brazil's Supreme Court Reaction After The Presidency Went Too Far
---
A legitimate question I have is:
What other institutions (or democratic tools) should have acted to halt the extremist anti-democratic movement lead by Bolsonaro?
(Not a trick question, an honest one given the crisis)
I am not familiar with Bolsonaro's movement, but censoring people under the guise of protecting democracy doesn't seem very democratic to me? At the very least, you have to admit here that there is a slippery slope where a good intentioned government or justice system could progressively get further away from these good intentions, and start using its power merely for the preservation of it?
It seems to me that censoring ideas that seem dangerous is far more dangerous than trying to correct them, and that a very high level of free speech is one of the most powerful antidotes against this slippery slope.
That wasn't what happened.
It's not like we had a left leaning judge favouring a left leaning party, it's Moraes, a conservative technician fight an extreme right antidemocratic movement.
The question that needs to be answer is how far democracy is willing to go outside of democratic bounds to preserve itself. Because to expect a democratic government never to act undemocratically is to expect it to be replaced by a fascists regimen given time.
I would say it should not do that essentially ever? If so, what kinds of undemocractic behavior would be allowed and what isn't? You probably have a certain kind of behavior in mind that you want to allow when you pose this question. If so, why not legislate that behavior using the democratic process?
It seems to me that the argument that protecting democracy by undemocratic means is okay, is essentially the same argument that a benevolent dictator is superior to democracy. Both arguments give special power to a certain group or individual that others do not have, which can be used to go outside the system if things don't work out. First order this argument is plausible. But second order effects (there is no such thing as categorically benevolent, and characters change, especially when in power) will always ruin it.
Democracy is messy. And when the world changes, there are challenges that democracy has to overcome. We're in the middle of a few of those changes right now. But the mess in by design. I believe that if we give up on a very high democratic standard things will turn out for the worse. My one addition here would be that in my view democracy is necessary but not suffient to get to a prosperous society. It needs to go hand in hand with a common value system where there's fellowship between citizens and genuine respect for individual right and the law. If not, there's a risk that the majority will only cater to itself.
You cannot protect a democracy against anti-democratic forces through purely democratic means. Riots and political violence are an expression of speech and arresting the perpetrators takes away their democratic freedoms. Should an ideal democracy do nothing during such events?
Riots definitely aren't "expression of speech", that's nonsense.
How so? Could you elaborate?
Just to be clear, this is in no way intended as an endorsement of rioting.
Violence is not speech. Is punching a person in the face as having a conversation with him?
The term speech is very broadly defined in law. A purely physical act can be speech in a certain context. It does not have to literally involve an exchange of words.
Many protests may turn into riots, that does not suddenly mean that the people involved in the violence are no longer expressing an opinion.
The term speech is very broadly defined because there are a lot of ways to convey meaning. Some of them then become ambiguous and you have to resolve those ambiguities and that gets messy. But only the messy cases are messy. Riots characteristically aren't a messy case, they're violence in the same way that publishing a newspaper article is speech.
Moreover, if you mess up the messy cases then you should try to do better but society will probably survive, whereas if you censor in the cases that are pure speech or don't punish the actions that are pure violence, you're the baddies.
Riots are characteristically very much a messy case, because not everyone joins a protest with the same intentions. Some will join a protest intending a purely peaceful display of dissent, while others seek violent confrontation.
On top of that repressive regimes will routinely declare otherwise peaceful protests a riot at the first sign of violence. Sometimes there are even saboteurs within the protest that try and lure out violent incidents in an attempt to get the protest to be declared a riot.
Finding the right balance between allowing demonstrations and keeping the peace and order is one of the most challenging aspects of democracy.
The people intending a purely peaceful display of dissent don't smash or set fire to anything, even if the people standing next to them do. Now, the court may have some trouble here with evidence because you then have to distinguish these people from one another, but that has become much less of a problem in modern days when everybody has a cellphone camera and police can be issued bodycams.
Either way this is a question of fact rather than a question of law.
Declaring something a riot shouldn't mean anything. If a specific person is breaking windows and looting they're breaking the law. If they're just standing there holding signs they're not.
It shouldn't be too much to ask to have the cops arrest the criminals and not the bystanders.
Have you ever met a cop before? The only disincentive to arresting more people is a bit of paperwork, and the whole court system is stacked against the arrested unless they can afford non-court-appointed lawyers to pave their way. Guilt-by-association doesn't magically disappear from the psyche when handing someone power and a gun, rather it gets easier to apply indiscriminately because it's very hard for people to oppose the one with authority over their freedom and state-sanctioned license to be violent.
I feel like you are the one who has never met a cop in a situation you were not a suspect , if you have and expouse publicly, that opinion.
What makes you feel that? The post you responded to makes complete sense and reflects countless instances of police brutality directed towards individual peaceful protestors.
Here's just one example out of literally countless examples of police brutality directed towards individual peaceful protestors: https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/08/29/nypd-cop-pepper-spray-blm...
Ironically (but unsurprisingly), this example of wanton and indiscriminate police brutality was the police response to protests against wanton and indiscriminate police brutality.
A protest is not a riot. A protest may turn into a riot.
A protester, by staying in a protest that turns into a riot, may also turn into a rioter.
Usually, a protester would understand that there's law breaking and leave the scene. Staying put, he'd become a rioter.
If you are standing around watching a friend engage in a streetfight, and someone ends up dead, now you are at a murder scene, and if you stick around doing nothing, don't be surprised if you are arrested as a suspect
> A protester, by staying in a protest that turns into a riot, may also turn into a rioter.
Only if that individual protestor personally commits acts of violence. Obviously they are not a rioter simply by being near other rioters. That's an illegal concept known as collective guilt or collective punishment.
> Usually, a protester would understand that there's law breaking and leave the scene. Staying put, he'd become a rioter.
That would mean the government can outlaw protests by simply committing a single act of violence during one (or falsely claiming there was violence), declaring it a riot, and calling all the protestors, rioters. Obviously illegal.
> If you are standing around watching a friend engage in a streetfight, and someone ends up dead, now you are at a murder scene, and if you stick around doing nothing, don't be surprised if you are arrested as a suspect
Few would be surprised by police doing illegal things. That doesn't mean the illegal things are legal.
In the same vein, if you record police brutality in the United States, don't be surprised if you are threatened or targeted by police. If you insult a police officer to their face in the United States, don't be surprised if you get assaulted, arrested, or shot and killed. Does that make such police behavior legal or righteous?
Riot is not "peaceful display of dissent", despite the efforts of the "mostly peaceful" press to muddle the waters. There's a peaceful protest and there's a violent riot, and they are very different, by the presence of violence. Intentions don't matter, actual events do.
In a democracy, policy has the ability to arrest perpetrators by force if they break the law. The key thing is that the law the perpetrators are breaking was approved democratically, and that there is due process by an independent judiciary. Democracy does not mean that there never is any violence.
In that case you get to the opposite problem. It is entirely possible to democratically legislate democracy away as long as your group holds power for long enough with a super-majority.
Yes, democracy is subject to a 51% attack, like blockchain stuff. Better than a 1% or 10% attack though. Some countries like the US have a constitution that can only be changed by a majority >> 50%, offering additional but still not full protection. This is why I mentioned it’s also desirable to have a common value system among the citizenry. In the end, a country has to be more than just laws and voting, and at some point people have to actually get along and make it work together.
Definitely agree there, a democracy cannot function without the majority making concessions to the minority. Concessions like not changing the law to keep themselves in power forever.
This is why constitutions exist, and courts to prevent breaches of those constitutions. This is why judges are often appointed, especially top ones, so that a change in government does not mean all checks and bounds are immediately gone. This is also why many countries have multiple legislative houses, so that one election cannot give unlimited power to one legislative house.
Thus it takes longer to slide into an undemocratic state, and checks and bounds are slower to change than a simple election. In essence, laws passed in such democracies becomes the will of the people over decades, not one election.
If a democracy has a will to move towards undemocratic rule, and it takes decades to get there, then really the people have failed themselves.
I live in The Netherlands, we have do not have a constitutional court and we still have a monarchy. A proposal to amend the constitution requires a simple majority in both houses of Parliament after which you have to call a general election. The general election is the only opportunity for someone outside of Parliament to stop it.
After the general election the amendment has to be voted on by both houses of Parliament again and win by a super-majority. Thus it is technically possible to disband Parliament and return all power back to the King within a year without the courts having any power to stop it.
So in case Parliament suddenly decides we should go back to an absolute monarchy, then we're only one general election away from completely dismantling democracy.
To answer this question you first have to define what democracy is.
A decent definition is probably something like, a system of government in which policy is decided by having a public debate in which anyone can participate and then, after everyone has had a chance to say their piece, policy is chosen through voting.
From this you immediately run into potential problems. For example, suppose the majority is quite fond of the current leadership and wants to put them in power forever and stop holding elections. Is that democratic? It's the policy people are voting for. And yet, it would be the end of democracy, so the answer has to be no.
From this we discern that in order to have a democracy, there have to be certain things the government is never allowed to do, even if they're what the majority wants. You can't cancel elections, censor the opposition, throw people in jail without due process, etc. These types of things are inherently undemocratic, regardless of what the majority wants, because if the government does them you no longer have a democracy.
It should go without saying that the government can never do these things to "save democracy" because they are the very things that destroy it.
Well, what you described is not quite “Democracy” but “Majority Rule”. Those are two different things
The heart of the argument for the person advocating democracy here is centered on the idea that democracy, by its nature, must protect certain fundamental principles, even if those principles are threatened by a majority or by actions claimed to be in defense of democracy itself.
They emphasize (in good faith I might add) that certain actions, such as censoring the opposition, canceling elections, or jailing people without due process, are inherently undemocratic and would destroy democracy if allowed, regardless of the intentions behind them. The argument is that democracy must adhere to its own rules and principles, even in the face of threats, because violating those principles in the name of protecting democracy ultimately leads to its destruction.
You can’t “protect Democracy” by violating its core tenants.
I feel like your arguments are more whataboutism than substantive.
There are no core tenants of democracy other than majority rule. The actions you listed (with the exception of canceling elections) do not actually destroy the ability for the majority to rule. In fact, one common tactic of democratic states is to employ referendums for laws that infringe on the rights of a minority, thus shifting the moral blame onto the population when convenient.
To play by the rules is an implicit rule in any political/power system. There are consequences when a ruler practices tyranny.
It's not clear what kind of distinction you're trying to draw or why it would be relevant. Some kind of representative democracy where policy is chosen by something more involved than a majority popular vote would still have to be just as forbidden from engaging in tyrannical activities that influence the public discourse or the mechanisms the populace uses to express their preferences.
That's not remotely similar to any of the established definitions.
Those tends to be based on variants of democracy being "institutions that enable a peaceful transfer of power". This usually includes the so called democratic freedoms, overseeing journalists, and a non-politicized judicial system.
Every practicing democracy however includes some exceptions for law and intelligence services, as that is required to uphold the system in times of uprisings and uncertainty. Advocating genocide or revolting against the democratic institutions is not considered within the bounds of democracy anywhere.
What do mean "not remotely similar"?
You don't offer an established definition, but you do list some things the government must not do, e.g. overseeing journalists, politicizing the judicial system. Those things could easily fall within GP's definition.
If half the registered voters want to elect Adolf Hitler, is it acceptable for a democratic government to agree to ignore them? The Nazi party is banned in Germany. Is that good or bad?
I agree such a government is not acting democratically. However, it's better than the alternative. Don't we do democracy because it's usually good, and not for its own sake? Then if doing something nondemocratic is even better than doing something democratic, we should do the former.
You want a democratic government to have "undemocratic" guardrails, because otherwise you are ok with mob rule. Democracy without rules is pure and simple majority rule. You do not want this. Unless of course you are ok with slavery, going back hangings, etc. If that's the case, I rest my case.
You want democracy to be prevented from acting out on its passions by a balance of powers.
IN the brazil case, the state powers, and the brazilian voters are not preventing 1 judge from acting out his passion "to protect democracy". Ergo, this is the problem. The mob is granting him this power, when in fact it should be voters, via congress or even the office of the president which brings this loose cannon of a judge back within the powers given by the constitution of brazil.
In this case, brazil is behaving like a raw democracy. It is true majority rule. Laws apply as the majority sees fit.
Hope you don't end in the minority.
Nope, you’re spinning it.
The mob rule here is Bolsonaro’s, and in no functioning democracy are multiple Powers (legislative, governmental and judicial) collected into 1 hand.
If a judge goes out of control it’s another judge’s task to regain it, or an independent Judicial court.
The idea that another judge or an independent judicial body should intervene if a judge is overstepping is consistent with how a system of checks and balances should function in a Democracy and I think you are largely correct.
However, whether the judiciary in Brazil is actually overstepping or properly fulfilling its role is a matter of interpretation and context.
The broader and very much core question is whether the actions taken by the judiciary, such as censoring social media or jailing individuals without trial, are justified under the circumstances or if they themselves undermine democratic principles. This is the same basic issue I made my other comment about in your series of replies.
This is a nuanced issue that can be debated from different perspectives and much more of a subjective question, and it’s important to separate the issues.
What are the nuances of "jailing individuals without trial"?
Thanks for explaining the distinction. In Italy we’ve had the same kind of polemic for 20 years from Berlusconi’s Right, claiming — whether preposterously or not is itself debatable, and fanned by Berlusconi’s media — that the Judiciary was corrupt, captured by the “CUmmunishti”, and the haters.
It’s interesting how it’s all playing out again.
You can rest your case if you'd like but it's a loser.
Democracies got rid of those things that still exist today in undemocratic societies.
I don’t know if a well-designed democratic government needs to act undemocratically ever.
For example, in the US, the Supreme Court is able to expand its powers, but it can always be overridden by the legislative branch by design. The executive branch doesn’t even have to follow the Supreme Court’s rulings. And the legislative and executive can be replaced by citizens.
By design, the US Constitution basically has an infinite loop of checks and balances - there is always another institution that can override one institution without breaking any rules.
That said, the buck does stop, but it stops at the people. The problem is that people do need to be well-informed and vigilant to for the this scheme to work out, but to be honest, that is not a problem specifically with democracy — it’s just a general societal problem.
There have been recent Supreme Court rulings that many would say are disagreeable, but we’re not doing anything about it because a lot of citizens either support it or just don’t care. But if citizens did, we could easily undo those decisions using the rules set out by the Constitution. So the problem really lies more with the people than the system.
Now I’m not familiar with the Brazilian political system — who checks the Supreme Court there? I just know the US Constitution had a LOT of people working on it and they covered a lot of bases.
- who checks the Supreme Court there?
In theory, the Senate can check the Supreme Court by impeaching the judges, the problem is that the Supreme Court checks all the senators and congressmen, by being the only one who can prosecute them.
9 out of 11 Supreme Court judges were indicated by the Labor Party (Lula and Dilma) in the last 20 years, some closely related to Lula. They can do anything they want, without worrying about elections. The president of Brazil doesn't matter anymore, at least for the next couple of presidential elections.
To add more
* if a senator commits a crime it can rest assured that the process will moth in a drawer until prescription as long as the senator doesn't go against the supreme court or its ministers personal interests.
* the supreme court (STF) also controls the electoral tribunal (TSE).
A lot of this is more fragile than you want it to be though.
For example, the US Constitution was set out to have a weak federal government and have the state governments handle all the things that didn't specifically need to be federal, and one of the biggest checks and balances for this was that federal legislation had to pass the Senate and federal Senators were elected by the state legislatures. The Senate was the states' representation in the federal government, that's what it was for. Then the 17th amendment took it away, which was immediately followed by a persistent massive expansion of federal power, because the thing that was meant to act as a check on it got deleted.
Sometimes the checks and balances need more checks and balances.
I think the point when people start saying "you have to do the reverse of X to preserve X" is the right time for them to look in the mirror and check not wearing clown getup
We are all wearing a clown getup (I am assuming you mean ideology by that). The most important thing is to be aware of that.
If it's outside democratic bounds, what is being preserved is not a democracy anymore. Why preserve it then? So it serves autocrats better? "We must become fascists so other fascists don't take over" is not a very convincing principle.
Why does this matter?
Democracy is not an being. When you act democratically, that's democracy. When you act undemocratically, that's against democracy. Acting democratically is when the justification for your rule comes from the desires of the people ruled. When you believe it's fine to silence (or officially harass, imprison or kill) people whose desires don't conform with yours, you are actively working against democracy.
The biggest scam of the centrist blob is convincing some (comfortable, middle-class) people that they're insiders who own democracy, so all of their anti-democratic behavior becomes democratic by definition.
... Uhuh.
These are supreme court judges who openly and publicly showboat about being the ones personally responsible for defeating Bolsonaro. They literally said things like "mission given, mission accomplished" after the election was over. I saw news where one of them said he was proud to be partidarian. They've also said that Lula being elected was due to decisions of the supreme court.
And you would have us believe they did not favor Lula in any way whatsoever.
It makes no sense to destroy democracy in the name of defending it. To accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same is doublethink, a symptom of political alienation. Beware that you might be the fascist. Given time Jesus will return our the Sun will die taking us along with it. Eventuality isn't an argument.
Leaving aside all inaccuracies that are unavoidable in political situations: Philosophy spent quite some time thinking about this: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dirty-hands/
In this case it sounds like Moraes threatened to arrest Brazilian X employees if the company didn’t comply with its requests.
That is wildly outside democratic norms IMO. Not just the arrest of individual employers, but the threat of which coming directly from a sitting Supreme Court Justice.
Censoring isn't the same as investigating the use of bots and fake news to spread rumors and lies for polítics gain and literal profit. The right tries to confuse people by mixing their crimes with free speech.
This is why I like the United States. The first rule is freedom of speech. I hate Trump and I hate the right, I think Trump should be jailed for at least a decade for his attempts to destroy American democracy (fake elector scheme, inaction on Jan 6, pressuring of legislators during Jan 6), but I'd be out there protesting with everyone else if Trump could be jailed simply for spreading falsehoods in general.
I think freedom of speech is kind of a bullshit concept at a philosophical level - I've become very blackpilled in that department - but at a legalistic level it's beyond the pale to me that someone could be imprisoned just for words barring very special circumstances.
The government should not be throwing people in prison for allegedly "spreading lies for personal or political gain" unless it already clearly falls under an existing crime (like fraud - getting someone to give you money under explicit false pretenses) or tort (like defamation - knowingly telling damaging falsehoods about someone else to harm them). Incitement to likely, imminent lawless action is also already covered.
The US is a very odd choice to pick for free speech rights. It has had a terrible track record regarding free speech, especially throughout most of the 20th century.
Try advocating for communism from the 20s-80s or for the rights of black people in the 50s/60s/into-70s.
Or say the wrong criticism in the early 2000s after 9/11. At best you get surveillance, at worst you’re dealing with FISA.
We have not had any changes to the constitution to further protect speech, either.
None of those things landed people in jail. The US, from a law standpoint, has had the strongest free speech protections of almost any country in history.
The US has certainly had its problems, like widespread racism and the red scare, sure, but this is all relative to how other countries respond to speech with legal action.
Every single one of those things landed people in jail. Many people also got sent to prison under the Espionage Act just for publicly opposing conscription during the wars of the 20th century.
Literally all of those things did.
- Equal rights activism https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/feb/1
- Communism activism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Act_trials_of_Communist_...
And don't even get me started on Snowden and Assange exposing the tremendous (war + civilian) crimes of the US government and being silenced and persecuted for it.
Absolutely false. It's not even in top 10.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
Many people don't know that the Soviet constitution guaranteed freedom of speech[1] (Article 125[1]), provided it was "in conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system"
Same goes for other socialist governments: the People's Republic of China (Article 35[2]), the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Article 67[3]), the German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany, Article 9[4]), and so on.
Of course, the reality was and is lengthy imprisonment for "free speech" against the government or ruling class.
"Free speech, except for [exceptions that are nearly infinite in scope]" is a key feature of socialist governments, as is justifying the imprisonment of dissidents and undesirables as "fighting anti-democratic forces" and "preventing the spread of misinformation".
Moreover, socialist governments are very clear that they are democracies; it's often in the name (Democratic People's Republic of Korea), and also frequently appears in speeches, official documents, etc.
Their commitment to "democracy" isn't just words-on-paper, either! Voting is usually either mandatory or "strongly encouraged", although you can only vote for a Party-approved candidate, and the outcome of elections is basically pre-determined.
[1] https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/36cons04....
[2] http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Constitution/2007-11/...
[3] https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Peoples_Repub...
[4] https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/1999/1/1/33cc8de2-3c...
I don't understand this post. Censoring is when a government official issues orders to publishers requiring them not so publish things. Whatever else you're talking about here you're simply using as a rationalization for censorship.
You have to know that you're being dishonest when the subject is a judge ordering publishers to unpublish and silence people, and you immediately equivocate between that and "investigating," then accuse "the right" of trying to confuse "their crimes" and "free speech." You're literally doing that right now. You are somehow explaining away literal and explicit censorship orders (that no one is claiming don't exist) as "investigation" of "their crimes."
Someone making a profit publishing links that are fake but get lots of clicks or youtube lives isn't using their freedom of speech, they are criminals committing crimes for profit.
You're correct that censoring this wouldn't be considered censorship colloquially, but academically and in legal circles it absolutely is censorship.
In everyday language, when we say "censorship", we only mean the bad kind of censorship. On Hacker News and other places that discuss these topics more in-depth, many use the term more academically, leading to a neverending stream of confusion in the replies every time without fail.
Similar story for the term "democracy", which has a large number of meanings depending on who you're talking to. In this tree there's again people arguing about which specific examples are considered democratic without having even agreed on a common definition of the term.
What is the crime being committed? Lying? Is that a crime?
They’re literally using their freedom of speech. Not sure what else you would call it.
Investigating with the intent to suppress information you find objectionable is literally the definition of censorship. The reuters article makes it clear they intended to follow through legality be damned.
The justice just demanded information about the people behind a few accounts. That's more than fair of a justice system to ask and if a network thinks they are above a country's law they should definitely leave. The printscreens of the orders are nothing burgers.
It seems that way to me too, but we have examples of high-censorship, high-freedom societies like Germany, and high-censorship, low-freedom societies like Singapore, and both report high levels of happiness.
The devil really is in the details.
This is incorrect. Singapore is not a high censorship/low freedom society. You should visit countries before you trash them.
I guess “high censorship” is subjective, but you can’t protest without a police permit, media organizations are licensed by the government, certain foreign media have been effectively banned when when they made statements the government didn’t like, you can’t put on a play without script approval by the government, all movies are presented by the government, and libel laws have been used to bankrupt political opponents, forcing them out of government.
Seems pretty “high” censorship to me.
Singapore constrains freedom quite substantially.
Singapore’s parliamentary political system has been dominated by the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and the family of current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong since 1959. The electoral and legal framework that the PAP has constructed allows for some political pluralism, but it constrains the growth of opposition parties and limits freedoms of expression, assembly, and association.
Deeper Analysis of Political Rights and Civil Liberties:
https://freedomhouse.org/country/singapore/freedom-world/202...
I haven't visited North Korea either. That shouldn't stop anyone from opining on it.
I have, and I found it much as Gibson did [0]
[0] https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/
When the police storms your home (the wrong one at first, too) because you called a minister a dick on Twitter, that's not "high-freedom".
In my estimation, a country can have high censorship but also high ability for people to change the government (that’s what I call “freedom” here). So, in that sense, Germany is high-freedom because it can elect people to change the laws which enable censorship.
What's happiness got to do with it?
Well your question leads straight to the “Paradox of Intolerance”.
It’s indeed tricky, but the sorting criteria is: once in power, would these people club me to death, or let go of power if they lost a free election?
In the paradox of intolerance, Popper was writing about violence, not anti-establishment speech.
Known for his critical rationalism and vehement opposition to authoritarianism, Popper would probably be spinning in his grave if he knew that his essay is cited as a token every time someone is persecuted for posting the wrong kind of tweet.
There’s also a slippery slope where good intentions of protecting “free speech” at all costs enable an anti-democratic authoritarian takeover or worse.
Not to say I know which this is, or a better way to balance things, but free speech absolutism over all other considerations is not always the right answer to protect free speech and democracy.
No one is saying the court shouldnt defend democracy. We're saying that censorship is not the way to do that.
What we're facing here is a distinction between US and BR law (actually, US is the exception world wide, for Brazil law is closer to what you would find in Europe on this matter).
In Brazil, it's not a crime to say what you think. But it is a crime to falsely claim that someone has committed a crime. This is especially serious if you are influential on social media and your statement, even if false, is likely to generate dangerous reactions from your followers.
Im not speaking to the legality, but the morality of censorship. The times believes censorship is wrong, so they titled an article about censorship in a way that calls out the censors.
Most Brazilians agree that censorship is wrong. The problem is that "censorship" is a vague word.
We lived in an actual military dictatorship until 1985. A dictatorship that engaged in real hard prior-censorship. Music, news, and pieces of art were all subject to a military collegiate body that would decide what could and could not be published.
What's going on now is very, very different. Brazil, like most European countries, thinks that if you commit a crime through what you say, you can and must be held accountable. No one is being prevented from expressing their opinion.
In the months leading up to the elections, the judges censored a documentary about Bolsonaro before it was published. A priori censorship.
We are living in the exact same kind of authoritharian regime our parents lived through. The difference is our parents knew they were being oppressed.
I believe this requires context:
1) The producers of the documentary in question are a politically active group and well-known supporters of Bolsonaro.
1.1) They are also known for producing (and earning money from) content that spread misinformation, conspiracy theories and the like.
1.2) They always could, and they still can, produce and disseminate this kind of morally questionable content without being disturbed. They were never subject to a priori censorship, for we are not living under a dictatorship anymore.
2) In 2018, during the presidential campaign, Bolsonaro was the victim of an attack (stabbed). The suspect was arrested red-handed.
2.2) After that, a thorough investigation was carried out by the federal police (our FBI, so to speak) that concluded the suspect had mental issues and acted alone. There was no one "behind" the attempt.
2.3) Bolsonaro's personal lawyers, who followed the investigations, saw no elements to question nor to require further investigation, and in the criminal sphere, that's the end of the story.
2.4) However, as we could all expect, Bolsonaro politically exploited his attack. Up to this day, he or his supporters occasionally claim or imply that "this politician" or "that organization" is behind the attack he suffered. None of these claims can be grounded in the investigations carried out by the Police, and he never presents any evidence, not even circumstantial ones, for any of these claims. Long story short: he won the 2018 elections.
2.5) However, in 2022 there was no ongoing investigation anymore. Therefore, if he wants to point the finger towards someone, he has to do it by ignoring the conclusion of the investigations.
3) In 2022, while trying to get reelected, 6 *days* (not months) before the elections, the producers of the documentary in question (whose name is "Who ordered Bolsonaro to be killed?"), tried to release it online. The obvious goal was to exploit the attack politically in order to help Bolsonaro's reelection.
3.1) During the elections, as in many European countries, Brazil has specific rules designed to prevent economic abuse and fight disinformation that could cause a harmful imbalance in the electoral contest. You can't, for instance, accuse your adversary (or people from his campaign) of committing a crime without evidence (specially if the crime in question is something like ordering a murder) a few days before the election in the hope that people in shock vote for you. However, political supporters and campaigners use lots of well-known techniques to try to bypass these rules. One of them is to present Campaign information in the form of a "documentary".
4) That's why the electoral authorities preempted the producers from releasing the material 6 days before the election day as they planned. It could be released freely the day after the elections. And it was. It is there for anyone to see since then. That's what happened. Nothing like the heavy prior-censorship to which every journalist, artist and citizen was subjected to during our military dictatorship a few decades ago.
I hope this helps those interested in understanding Brazil's recent turmoil.
You seem to think this is some kind of valid excuse for the judge-king's behavior. In fact it only makes it worse. You do realize that, in the course of prohibiting censorship, the constitution makes it a point to explicitly mention political censorship, right?
I couldn't care less what the goal of the documentary was. I witnessed these judges censor it and as far as I'm concerned censorship equals dictatorship. It's that simple. If they did it with political motivations, that only makes it worse.
And I don't care for the judge-king's censorship of "misinformation" either. I'll judge for myself, thank you very much. I don't need his "help" to determine right from wrong. He's been doing this ministry of truth thing for around half a decade already and it's seriously tiresome. This is the same guy who censored accusations of communism against Lula, a self-admitted socialist. Censored the people who associated him with his dictator friends, and then we had to watch him roll out the red carpet for the Venezuelan one.
But the Brazilian constitution does care for both these things.
That's why it requires special care during the elections in order to prevent abuse. What's at stake is a principle you find in every liberal thinker since modern times, and that grounds most (if not all) democratic constitutions worldwide: If there's no fire in a crowded theater, one can't shout "Congressman X started a fire! Run!", incite people to leave in a hurry and later claim that "I was just manifesting my political opinion, people were free to ignore and judge the situation for themselves", as if you were not expecting their panic and the risks associated with crowds in panic. You're responsible for whatever ensues, and if this kind of behavior can be preempted, it must be. Or so thinks pretty much every democratic country in the world, not just Brazil.
If we judge by the rule you mention, this would be censorship. That would mean there's probably no country in the world that could be considered democratic (even the so called "absolute" US freedom of speech is something of a myth, for there are lots of decisions from the US Supreme Court that would be deemed "dictatorial" according to the criterion you present here).
Bottom line is: Brazil lives under the rule of a democratic constitution built after much fight against real dictatorship and real censorship, not the rule suggested by you here (which, again, absolutely no country in the world lives by). You're free to disagree with the basic liberal and democratic principles grounding the Brazilian constitution, but whenever you and the constitution disagree, bear in mind that it is the constitution's point of view that's going to prevail.
Where in the constitution does it say that you can engage in censorship of any kind, let alone political? Here's what it says, translated verbatim:
That's what it literally says. It doesn't say you can maybe kinda sorta censor people if your cause is righteous enough. It doesn't say you can do it if it's fake news. So where is this disagreement you speak of? I can't seem to find it. I'm no lawyer but I've asked my lawyer friends and they couldn't find it either.
And nobody is shouting fire in a crowded theater. It's just some obviously biased documentary. Hilariously, that means it's of an artistic, ideological and political nature, all three of the categories explicitly singled out by the constitution. Whatever distorted logic they used to censor it must have been hierarchically inferior to the constitution, and therefore invalid.
I'm using the same logic that allowed US citizens to publish and export cryptography software by printing source code in a book. This is technology was literally export controlled for national security reasons. Cryptography has the power to defeat these judges, it has the power to defeat armies. There are few things in existence that are more subversive than democratized access to cryptography. And they used free speech to publish the source code. Their fight is a big reason why you're browsing this site with HTTPS enabled today. So don't compare distorted brazilian notions of free speech to american ones. They sure as hell have a lot more free speech than we do.
Freedom from speech isn’t the “right” of the people to express opinions. Freedom of Speech is a an explicit restriction on what the government is allowed to do after you speak, and more precisely, in response to unpopular speech.
So no country have freedom of speech? Because in the U.S a person can't say that they will kill someone... Pretty sure that's a crime, right?
Seems logically equivalent. If you have the right to express your opinions (no qualifier here, so they can be popular or not), that means no one can do anything to you (unless you commit a crime, of course). Perhaps one could argue that "speech" encompasses more than "opinion", but then the issue would become terminological.
Anyway, Brazil has freedom of speech in the very sense you've mentioned here. Unpopular speech is not a crime.
A better solution would to demand Tiktok to be sold to a local company. I mean, twitter.
I believe censorship in general to be wrong, but I feel the same way about lying and fraud. It's inarguable that some people lie for personal or political gain and then hide behind high-minded rhetoric about free speech. Hypocrisy is a real and often profitable phenomenon.
https://isps.yale.edu/research/publications/isps24-07
I too think there should be no recourse for libel or copyright infringement, since censorship of those acts is immoral
Seems to have worked pretty well in Europe. Many countries here ban praise of past mistakes.
I personally don't allow anyone in my immediate family to say anything good about the Norman Conquest.
Harand Godwinsson still reigns in my heart.
Was that meant to be a laugh line?
You can't claim to be defending people's rights while also jailing people without trial.
Indeed, but no one is doing that.
In Brazil there's what we call "preventive custody". If you're caught committing a crime, and if there is a risk that you could jeopardize the investigations (by eliminating evidence, threatening or influencing witnesses, etc.), then you are held in custody until the investigation is concluded.
I don't believe you would find something very different going on in any other democratic country.
In this scenario, are you actually charged with a crime? If not, that’s the literal definition of being jailed without trial.
Many (most?) democratic countries impose strict limits on how long you can be held without being charged. In the US, for example, you can only be held for 72 hours — at which point the police must either charge you or release you.
Sure, you're actually charged with a crime. And the kind of limitations you talk about do apply.
Even in situations where you could be held in jail, there's a tendency to let you go unless it is impossible to prevent you from jeopardizing the investigations by any other means. For instance, if the only real worry is that you flee to another country, you might have your passport confiscated rather than being held in jail. Likewise, if the worry is that you can use your influence to make others do stuff for you (stuff that jeopardizes the ongoing investigations, I mean), then you might remain at home, under surveillance, and so on.
If you’re charged with a crime why is it called preventetive custody?
Actually you can, when those people are psychopaths encouraging a revolution. It's literally in the law!
yeah, downvote me.... like I don't see HN removing any topic about right-wing weirdos
bunch of sensitive cis white males
Their ego can't handle criticism.
Look at their leaders Trump and Musk, both sensitive men-children with the emotional regulation of a toddler.
Free speech for all, until you say "incel" or question why Trump, a serial philanderer, cheater, and failed businessman, is earning the Evangelical Christians' approval.
What if the people being jailed are urgently trying to take away people's rights?
Also, what's supposed to happen to criminals before they are on trial? Normally they get jailed.
"All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison."
Justice persecutors, that sit on the fence between the Judiciary and the Executive (but are nominally in the Judiciary) should be the ones starting those actions. The federal police should be the ones feeding information for them to act on.
On the case where Alexandre de Moraes is the victim, it should have been judged by a normal regional court, first by a judge and then by a panel of 3. In case it ever reaches his court, he should have sent it to somebody else (decided by a draw).
In no situation a court should be commanding a police investigation.
Is this more in line with Brazil's legal tradition, or are you arguing this from within a different jurisdiction?
That's what the Law demands.
I don't personally agree with all of it.
That doesn't really answer my question, I can't tell if you're posting from Brazil or some other country.
It's what the Brazilian Law says.
There's always a new excuse to take away peoples right or aggressively censor things. "This time is different" "It's just an exceptional situation" etc they say every time until the next time.
They’re taking your human rights away from you for your own good, my friend. They guide rails. Just don’t act out or say or think anything they don’t like and they won’t beat you because they love you.
This is a catch 22, because Bolsonaro team was using social media and fake news to move dumb masses towards their objective, pretty similar to Trump in the US. The judge in question, with his despotic tendencies, was in an open war against Bolsonaro (started by Bolsonaro) and stretched the powers of the judiciary to bring Bolsonaro down. Now, we have 2 wrongs here. But how one should react to all of this?
How can you prove that you’re not a member of the “dumb masses” being fooled by the fake news?
If you have to censor your opposition it's an admission they've made points you can't refute.
The solution is to bring some smarter people into your movement with better counterarguments. Often those counterarguments are going to have to include some minor concessions and soul searching. Maybe your side has gotten complacent and drifted in its beliefs away from the sensible. Maybe you're become equal but opposite to those you call awful.
I.e. produce new ideas that resonate better than theirs and they'll disappear like a fart in the wind.
Being tolerant of absolutely everything in the name of tolerance is a trap, and it's bound to fall into an extreme state. That creates an asymmetric battle where one side can attack from every angle while the other is bound to a rigid set of well known rules.
In practice you can't maintain a viable situation with absolutes: absolute democracy doesn't work, absolute freedom of speech doesn't work. You need boundaries, and it also means intervening through alternative ways when your usual tools can't deal with a situation.
To start, the fallacy here, is to assume there was indeed an "extremist anti-democratic movement led by Bolsonaro".
In theory, Bolsonaro's actions should have gotten him impeached a long time ago. However, congress was more than happy to keep a "weak" president in power, because it allowed them to grab more power from the executive branch. It's no surprise that the percentage of the budget allocated to "earmarks" ballooned during the Bolsonaro administration.
I find the notion of fighting extremism with more extremism dubious. The legitimacy of the government derives from the consent of the people. If the people voted for Bolsonaro and are not opposing his actions, the judiciary will not be able to stop the slide, their extreme actions only give him fuel.
None.
There is no "anti-democratic" movement here. To be against democracy, you need to actually be living within a democracy. Unfortunately, Brazil is not a democracy. Brazil is a judiciary dictatorship.
These unelected judge-kings run this nation. They have been running it for years. They're basically gods here. Untouchable. Their powers have been expanding continuously. In the months leading up to the elections, it got to the point they started disregarding the brazilian constitution and engaging in blatant political censorship. And their power keeps expanding.
What's more anti-democratic than a bunch of unelected judges doing whatever they want? This is the real coup.
If Bolsonaro intended to do anything, it was in reaction to this sorry state of affairs, and I don't blame him for trying at all. I blame him for failing.
What extremist anti-democratic movement lead by Bolsonaro? The guy was president during pandemics with strong popular and military support. The facts are that he had the bread and the knife and yet no coup was attempted while he was in power.
Bolsonaro is a straw man used by the extreme left which currently is in power to justify an institutional authoritarian escalation. And this escalation was happening long before Bolsonaro.
“defend democracy” has become a rhetorical device unrelated to actually doing so. Expanding your power and censoring people is tyrannical no matter what spin you put on it. And tyrants always have a spin, no one ever says I’m looking to end democracy.
It's a near certainty those who are still operating are obeying censorship / takedown requests by the Brazilian government.
Elon Musk said the EU Commission tried to attack X: "It'd be too bad if you were to get big fines uh!? So take down any content we ask you to take down and in exchange we'll make sure you don't get those fines".
These are mafia tactics and it makes me ashamed to be an EU citizen.
This has nothing to do with democracy: it's its opposite. Dictatorship.
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech..."
People, worldwide, are beginning to understand the importance of the first amendment. I do genuinely fear that very soon people in several countries (including mine) may learn the hard way what the lack of the second amendment leads to.
I don't think there's a lot of democracy in having some gazillionaire buy a social media platform and then interfere in the politics of other sovereign nations/continents.
As a EU citizen I hope we get rid of Twitter at some point and build a sovereign communications infrastructure and domestic firms abiding by our local laws, because that is what a democracy is about.
“Interfere in the politics of other sovereign nations/continents”?
Europeans are choosing to use X. Nobody is forcing them.
And it seem odd to blame someone in another country for voicing their opinion.
It certainly isn’t Musks statement that causing social unrest. It just threw a twig on an already burning fire cause by government policy.
It's "only" the richest man in the world fanning the flames globally of his favourite wedge issues (which for some reason are all far right memes), great.
So you’re upset that people read Elon’s tweets?
“Fanning the flames”? You mean sharing his opinion?
Would it be ok if he wasn’t rich?
I don’t understand your point
Not really upset other people read them. Disappointed he doesn't have more constructive things to say to the people that do listen to him though.
He can share his opinion, but there are ways do it that don't involve riling people up.
Yes, money is power. No one cares about me posting here, if it was Musk it would be (sadly) global news.
Musk is helping start the fire, he should be more responsible in his position of power.
But that’s happening everywhere on every social platform isn’t it? The very act of going along with censorship requests interferes with the politics of a nation by silencing opposition.
Not any more, most social media platforms nowadays seem to be capable of enforcing local laws. The act of following lawful takedown requests isn't political, it's literally just enforcing the law of the land, the bare minimum any foreign company has to do if it wants to do business anywhere.
There's obviously also no reason to assume this has anything to do with any opposition, Twitter can't even make sure anything that's posted on that site is even posted by people, let alone citizens of their respective jurisdictions.
Having Elon Musk on the one side and bots from a basement in Moscow on the other set your country's conversation is many things but certainly not democratic.
You seem to envision a world in which one would have to physically travel outside the borders of your nation in order to hear what people outside the nation think. Do you also propose that foreign printed media be banned in your nation? What if a foreigner writes a letter to a citizen in your nation and attaches a clipping of a magazine article that criticizes your government? Should the letter be confiscated? Should all mail be opened and censored by your government? How would that be any different than life was in Soviet Russia and East Germany? Do you really propose regressing to that, now in the 21st century, after all the oppressive atrocities perpetrated in the 20th?
I don't, what kind of strawman is that? What I propose is that foreigners play by the same rules domestic citizens do, no more no less. When in Rome do as the Romans do is what I propose, so as long as foreign outlets abide by the laws and rules of the country they want to do business in they should be able to freely publish. But when they think that they don't need to do that because they're convinced the American first amendment somehow applies in Brazil or the European Union and that American businessmen get to make the rules instead of national governments then you show them where the door is, that is all.
2nd amendment protects the 1st. You either have both or neither.
It's hilarious that you think an armed rebellion in the US would stand even the smallest chance of success against the US military.
Worked for Afghanistan
They had an appropriate BMI.
And yet in the same breath we have people seriously claiming that the US government was >this< close to being overthrown by a bunch of unarmed boomers on January 6th.
There already was a civil war in the US, and that's not how it happened. What's strange is that anyone thinks that a second one would be a matter of the US Army vs. the People, irrelevant to the States. It's a non-sequitur. Anyway, let us pray that it never comes to that, as much as our enemies would like it to. Imagine how giddy the CCP would be.
the US military does poorly against guerrilla warfare my friend
that's what most europeans and even americans said about the inbound UK army redcoats facing a few farmers rising in armed rebellion against the King.
The farmers stood no chance against the world's eminent superpower at the time, people said.
Yet here we are.
You're ashamed to be an EU citizen because the EU is asking X to take down posts instigating racial violence? Well, good riddance is all I can tell you...
Instigating is subjective. If you say ‘what is going on here?’ in the wrong tone of voice, authorities can say it’s instigation.
You can also instigate by saying "what is going on here?" in the wrong tone of voice.
The judiciary system in Brazil is a little different than the US one. It does not make Brazil a dictatorship as many of Bolsonaro's supporters claim, nor does an article in NYTimes.
How can that be so? The article says this:
> In Brazil, the 11 justices and the attorneys who work for them issued 505,000 rulings over the past five years.
Can that really be right? That's an average of 276 rulings per day, or one ruling every five minutes around the clock 24/7/365 for five years straight.
If that claim is true then it's clear that the Brazilian Supreme Court is not like supreme courts anywhere else in the world. It must be normally issuing rulings written by people who aren't the justices themselves. And, it must be a truly massive organization to create so many rulings on so many topics. Seeing as it appears to answer to nobody, nor follow any normal judicial procedure (being both accuser and judge in one body), it would seem fair to describe that as a parallel government acting as a dictatorship. How else could you describe it? What checks on their power do they recognize?
> Can that really be right? That's an average of 276 rulings per day
Yes. From the official website of the Supreme Court (STF - Supremo Tribunal Federal), real-time statistics:
65,173 rulings so far this year.
https://transparencia.stf.jus.br/extensions/decisoes/decisoe...
65173 rulings in 230 days by 11 people. That's 25.76 rulings per person per day if we ignore holidays and weekends.
They can't possibly read the cases, is this a kangaroo court?
No. Each minister has ~40 judges - not counting other staffers, law clerks, specialists, chief of staff - under them
It's standard, legal and completely expected for the Justice to dispose a general "guidance", delegate all the work and approve the sentencing based on minutes
A lot of people posting here are clearly right-leaning Brazilian voters with a bone to pick.
> Each minister has ~40 judges - not counting other staffers, law clerks, specialists, chief of staff - under them
Not true. Each minister can pick only 3 auxiliary judges. There are only 38 auxiliary judges for the whole Supreme Court.
From the Supreme Court's website. I combined auxiliary, instructor and substitute judges.
https://egesp-portal.stf.jus.br/forca_trabalho
Yes.
For example, one time the federal police arrested a corrupt banker (Daniel Dantas). Somehow the Supreme Court was in session literally 4:00 am to immediately make a ruling that the banker should be released...
Some of the current judges were literally lawyers of the current ruling party, there was even cases where they judged cases where they were themselves the lawyer in that case.
I could mention more things but that is an invitation to get arrested.
It's right there in the text:
That's not the case. The STF never accuses, they only judge. Accusations come from other institutions. The Supreme Court then orders investigations and act as judges.
Mostly the Parliament and the Senate, who can at any time pass new laws, including amendments to the Constitution.
That's not true for some of the cases referred here though. For matters that the court deems related to attacks on the Supreme Court or democracy, Moraes can act essentially as both prosecutor and judge.
I'm not arguing if this is good or bad. Some people argue this is good, some that it is bad, but it is a fact.
That's right, but that's because every judicial decision can go to Supreme Court. A random person got arrested because it stole a chicken? You can appeal up to Supreme Court.
Btw, there's "assistant judges" to help each of the 11 Justices here. The Justice is able to pick 3 of his choice.
Correct. Each "Justice" is more like a full fledged law office. It's designed like that.
I could describe it fairly. It's the top authority in a 3-branch government consisting of a council of many members with varied and often opposing views. Quite obviously different than a "parallel government" and dictatorship by definition
But I'd be wasting my time arguing with you for your sake. You're not seriously asking in good faith. I'm replying for the benefit of other people who may see your misguided politicaly motivated concern trolling
None of this is unique to Brazil and happens in countries all over the world where X continues to operate.
Regarding takedown demands, Twitter used to publish transparency reports on who was making them, but they stopped after Musk took over.
https://transparency.x.com/en/reports/removal-requests
In the final report 97% of all takedowns were made by Japan, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, and India (from most to least). They also broke down the number of takedowns against verified journalists and news outlets, which was led by India (114 takedowns), Turkey (78), Russia (55), and Pakistan (48), and Brazil was down the list with 8. It would be nice to have a more recent version of this report to see which way the tides have shifted.
Didn’t they just move that stuff here?
https://x.com/globalaffairs/status/1824819053061669244?s=46&...
Do they post aggregate stats about takedowns there? It seems like they just post ad-hoc information, which leaves a lot of room for editorialization. For example going into great detail about the Brazil situation, while on the other hand posting this extremely vague statement in response to Pakistan blocking X and then never following up with any further context about what's going on there.
https://x.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1780676243538452680
Have they ramped up censorship in Pakistan to appease the government? Who knows, they're not telling.
In the context here, a takedown request would be preferred. It would indicate the judge being willing to accept a takedown in lieu of putting the poster in prison.
This might be misleading. If old Twitter was preemptively taking down posts that certain American or European organizations wanted taken down, this wouldn't show in the transparency reports at all. If you used the platform before and now, it's very obvious that that was the case.
Not surprising since the US is the only country in the world with freedom of speech.
Yes, but Brazil has the most natural wealth available to steal.
Looking in from outside, the judiciary in Brazil seems to have a lot of "hard power".
More or less than the US?
Far more.
They do. Literal hard power. These guys have the pens which make federal police do their thing. I call them the judge-kings.
You know what's worse? Deep down, every brazilian knows it. Everyone here has always known this truth. Even before all this began. There's an old saying here: "doctors think they're gods, judges know it". Judges making arbitrary and monocratic decisions is a completely normalized thing here. We're witnessing in real time just how far their godlike powers stretch. We now know for a fact that judges have enough power to violate the brazilian constitution and get away with it.
Talking to actual brazilian lawyers is a surreal experience. Sometimes they'd sound confused while explaining a supreme court decision to me. They would say: "the supreme court was supposed to apply the constitution but they decided to legislate instead". Yeah, an actual lawyer told me that once. I was his student and I never forgot that lesson. The judges legislate in this country. If the judge-king doesn't like the law, he just doesn't apply it. If the law says the guy is innocent but the judge-king feels like punishing him, he gets punished.
"Judicial activism", they call it. Oh it's nothing, just a harmless euphemism for a silent coup that installed a dictatorship of the unelected judiciary. And even on HN my fellow brazilians will come and flag my posts to oblivion while insisting that I'm actually living in a democracy.
They pretty much decide about anything they want to decide, it's that simple. It's not like "oh, we only judge constitutional matters", as it happens in serious countries. I really mean ANYTHING.
There is run of the mill lawsuits involving defamation that the court decided to judge out of the bat. The accuser is a mainstream journalist (mainstream media as a whole have been – essentially – acting as public relations of the court – similar to how they acted as public relations for Biden during the 2020 elections btw), the accused part being another brazilian journalist living abroad, called Allan dos Santos (Moraes personally hates the guy and failed to extradite him from the US countless times - USA authorities essentially answering "it's only words, this is covered by our first amendment").
And instead of this lawsuit following the normal procedure as any other defamation lawsuit in Brazil. Moraes decided to elevate this case to automatically judge it in the highest instance of the country. His excuse? “Oh, Dos Santos is investigated in other procedures here, so I think they are related". And this has been essentially their trick to investigate/trial anything they want.
They say it's related. Hell, the Brazilian Supreme Court decide to investigate Ellon Musk himself.
Sources:
https://www.metropoles.com/brasil/moraes-abre-inquerito-cont...
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2024/03/eua-negam-extrad...
https://www.poder360.com.br/poder-justica/justica/moraes-abr...
You get sent to X jail for criticism of Musk on X. It happens on X itself.
In general, I agree with pulling out of a country that doesn’t exercise freedom of speech (as in criticism, not threats). But the hypocrisy is somewhat funny.
There’s probably better (for society) ways such as providing higher anonymity for criticism (not threats). But that seems like a nightmare overall.
I am power user with a large following on X and I have never once had any trouble, despite numerous times criticizing Musk.
Imagine a Chinese dissident brags about how they haven't been thrown into jail for criticizing the President... yet.
For now there's important differences between "X jail" (ban/shadowban) and "actual jail", for example expensive phone calls and not being able to visit Canada.
UK courts are sentencing people over social media posts too. M
If they said it over a megaphone during an incipient riot, and it would have led to an arrest warrant and charges laid, it would probably have happened as well. A good thing too.
Social media isn’t a consequence free zone.
At a quick glance the answer is yes. The power to silence speech the government speech the government deems fake is the power to silence speech the government doesn't agree with. The answer to fake news are outlets that allow free speech against the fake news like we have in the united states. Unless billionaires buy them all up and prevent the actual facts from coming out of course.
A related article which I submitted to HN before the elections.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/world/americas/brazil-onl...
Good comments from fellow brazilian HNers which provide the appropriate context:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36543423
The specific Brazilian issues aside, it would be great if we coiuld shut down these platforms in the US!
Proprietary mis-information platforms aren't helping anyone except their over compensated ownership...
Well it's not quite sentencing people to death for blasphemy, but you've got to walk before you run I guess.
Perhaps "failed state" just takes a while to bake.