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Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

pfraze
142 replies
19h15m

Copying over my latest backend status update; figure folks would find it interesting

Servers are holding up so far! Fortunately we were overprovisioned. If we hit 4mm new signups then things should get interesting. We did have some degradations (user handles entering an invalid state, event-stream crashed a couple times, algo crashed a couple times, image servers hit bad latencies) but we managed to avoid a full outage.

We use an event-sourcing model which is: K/V database for primary storage (actually sqlite), into a golang event stream, then into scylladb for computed views. Various separate services for search, algorithms, and images. Hybrid on-prem & cloud. There are ~20 of the k/v servers, 1 event-stream, 2 scylla clusters (I believe).

The event-stream crash would cause the application to stop making progress on ingesting events, but we still got the writes, so you'd see eg likes failing to increment the counter but then magically taking effect 60 seconds later. Since the scylla cluster and the KV stores stayed online, we avoided a full outage.

pcwalton
117 replies
16h37m

It's frustrating that anything related to X/Twitter is such a predictably-partisan tinderbox because this is really interesting technical information. Thank you for sharing it!

kstenerud
116 replies
13h26m

It's partisan/political because Musk is partisan/political. And it's not just Musk.

We've been living in a fantasy land of "no political affiliation" in the tech world for decades, and now that the age of the hyper-rich has come once again, they are realizing the benefits of using the power they wield to shape the worlds they live in.

So now in the early stages of this century's great fight, we'll see our beloved tech giants join the political fray in full force, dragging their follower armies along for the ride.

And it works, too. Just look at the comments here.

nox101
60 replies
12h50m

so strange for you to blame this on Musk. Twitter was already super partisan long before he took it over

JumpCrisscross
45 replies
12h46m

Twitter was already super partisan long before he took it over

Sure. But Elon changed teams. He used to be bipartisan. But he chose a champion in the aftermath of Covid and--by the looks of it--he's chosen a bad one.

(In an alternate universe where Musk stuck to what he's good at, I could see the entire Artemis programme being delegated to SpaceX and a bipartisan adoption of Tesla as America's EV standard bearer. Instead, there is real political capital in creating a rival to SpaceX. And Tesla is going to have to constantly be on the defence against cheap Chinese imports from the Democrats and establishment Republicans.)

pfannkuchen
35 replies
12h24m

I think people see Musk differently from how he actually is. Or at least how he sees himself.

He has always said, for many years, that he got into SpaceX to work towards the goal of making humans a multiplanetary species, and he got into electric cars to work towards the goal of having a sustainable energy society.

I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society, and if that threat isn’t addressed then the other goals don’t matter because society will collapse before they can be realized.

From a near term business perspective his political actions are dumb, but from a personal motivation perspective they make total sense.

Or in other words, Musk is primarily driven by a savior complex, not greed (which is unfortunate for investors).

jdietrich
16 replies
11h44m

I remember when the Toyota Prius was a potent symbol of everything that was wrong with smug liberals. Lazy comedians still use the Prius as a punchline. Why doesn't a Tesla Model 3 carry the same sort of political baggage? Why don't right-wing conspiracy theorists consider Musk to be part of the "WHO/WEF globalist elite", despite the fact that he's a tech billionaire who is literally trying to plug people's brains into The Matrix and colonise space?

By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan. Maybe he does really believe all of that stuff about "the woke mind virus", or maybe he realised that he can buy a priceless amount of political capital amongst people who would instinctively hate the goals of his project just by uttering the right incantations.

ZeroGravitas
6 replies
11h3m

Weirdly Hybrids have now become a climate denial fave.

In any thread about EVs there is a typical HN commenter desperate to tell you that they drive a hybrid, not an EV like those silly virtue signalers.

For those who remember the vicious attacks on the Prius it's a wild shift in attitude.

wordofx
5 replies
10h35m

Weird how pointing out climate change inaccuracies destroyed scientific debate.

In any thread about climate change they are desperate to tell you that you’re a climate denier when you point out inaccurate information.

For those who remember the vicious attacks on science, we called that the dark ages.

pavlov
3 replies
9h51m

In the late 1990s there were still medical scientists who questioned the causal link between HIV and AIDS. This was at a time when effective drugs were already approved and saving lives.

Those scientists believed they were asking reasonable questions and pointing out potential inaccuracies. But imagine you were an HIV positive patient in 1995 and you latched on to this scientific debate to conclude that probably you should just eat a lot of vitamins and things will work out fine, since the scientists can’t seemingly even agree on whether you’ll get AIDS…

This is not a theoretical example. AIDS denialism cost hundreds of thousands of lives during roughly 1995-2005. There was a Nobel prize winner (Kary Mullis) who supported the movement with his authority despite never having done any HIV research. The government of South Africa was also involved for their own political reasons.

It was a lot like today’s climate change denialism and needs to be remembered. The major difference is that the personal consequences of HIV denialism were felt within a few years on an individual level, so the matter was resolved within decades. With climate change, it’s going to take a century and today’s denialists won’t be around to feel the effects.

FollowingTheDao
1 replies
8h24m

In the late 1990s there were still medical scientists who questioned the causal link between HIV and AIDS

This is how science works. Being right is not "science". Science is verb. If the questioners were right we would be calling them heroes.

pavlov
0 replies
7h7m

I said as much in my comment, pointing out that these scientists with differing takes were not the bad guys: “These scientists believed they were asking reasonable questions and pointing out potential inaccuracies.”

The bad guys were the people who took this receding debate within the field as evidence of conspiracies and worse, and convinced thousands of people to treat their AIDS condition with quackery instead of effective drugs derived from the HIV-AIDS theory. The organized denialism killed people. That’s not science.

kelnos
0 replies
9h27m

With climate change, it’s going to take a century and today’s denialists won’t be around to feel the effects.

The thing that is so maddening is that we're already feeling the effects of climate change, but the denialists just claim those effects either aren't really happening, or are caused by something else (without bothering to define "something else").

bgarbiak
0 replies
9h27m

"Pointing out inaccurate information" in HN comments is not scientific debate, nor a science.

FranzFerdiNaN
2 replies
11h19m

Funny thing is that he is poisoning his own well by making leftwing people , who are much more likely to drive an EV, abhor him and Tesla.

It’s not only happening in the US but has also started to happen in other countries like Australia.

amarant
0 replies
9h40m

It's in full swing here in Sweden too. Me and a close colleague bought new cars a couple of months apart. My left-leaning teammates who are usually pretty climate aware only offered congratulations to my colleagues new gasgussler, but had some criticisms for me who bought a Tesla.

I found it weird tho, like fair, they were pissed about Twitter, but surely the planet is the bigger issue?

Musk has pissed off the left to the point where the left is not thinking clearly about him and his companies anymore. Regardless of what you think about Musk, Tesla is actually pretty great.

LightBug1
0 replies
9h52m

Yup - the hole turned me off so much I've switched my first EV buy to Hyundai ioniq 5 (N if my wife authorises it LOL) ... not saying they're any better but it's a branding thing ... I couldn't stand to be associated with anything to do with that hole.

jorvi
1 replies
9h50m

By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan.

There is a significant amount of people choosing to not purchase a Tesla because they don’t want to be associated with Mr. Musk.

SpaceX is more insulated because there is essentially no alternative. If Yspace existed, I’m sure a significant amount of people would choose to champion that instead.

I think you’re vastly underselling how much Mr Musk his communications and his association with the new hyperbigoted misinformation-hub Xitter has turned people to dislike him, powerful and influential one’s among them.

kelnos
0 replies
9h30m

There is a significant amount of people choosing to not purchase a Tesla because they don’t want to be associated with Mr. Musk.

Yep, and I know people who have sold their Teslas because they don't want to be associated with Musk any longer.

dageshi
1 replies
9h25m

If you want an honest answer to Prius vs Tesla, it's because Prius was seen as a slower and lamer version of existing cars for people who didn't care about cars. While Tesla's could get from 0-60 faster than hypercars of the time.

Tesla's offered an experience in terms of pure acceleration off the line that actually made them cool, even people who might never buy one wouldn't mind experiencing one off the line.

notahacker
0 replies
7h38m

Yep. And he could have effortlessly achieved tolerability in most right wing circles that reflexively dislike "smug liberals" simply by not saying "smug liberal" stuff whilst encouraging right wingers to talk up what a great capitalist innovator he was, running red state targeted ad campaigns and making a pickup truck that people that normally drive gas-guzzlers would actually want to drive. His aspirations for colonies on Mars were already at least as appealing to much of the right as they ever were to the left.

Buying Twitter and wading into political debates isn't a depoliticization strategy, and if he'd wanted to pick a colour of his politics to optimize his business success (surprisingly unimportant when your product line is as far ahead of competition as SpaceX/Tesla have been) the correct choice would have been beige.

JumpCrisscross
1 replies
11h38m

Why doesn't a Tesla Model 3 carry the same sort of political baggage?

When was the last time you were in a red state? Driving an EV of any kind is a strong political statement.

By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan

Not how partisan affiliation works--think of someone who flip flops from one side to the other. They aren't seen as above the fray or non-partisan. Just unreliable (albeit, usually, useful).

skrebbel
0 replies
10h49m

Driving an EV of any kind is a strong political statement.

This surprises me (I believe you though!). I've read lots of articles and fun facts lately about how places like Texas go fastest at installing solar panels, because solar is now the cheapest source of energy and all. I'd blatantly assume that those new solar field owners would be charging their cars with their own electricity, also purely for money reasons and not climate/ideological ones.

JumpCrisscross
12 replies
12h17m

he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

Sure. I don't think he's a hypocrite. He has, however, hyper fixated on a topic that's in vogue in tech circles but totally irrelevant elsewhere.

Unlike in technology, where one can credibly fail upwards, doing that in politics comes at the cost of influence. And in this block order we're seeing, tangibly, the consequences of Elon Musk's deteriorating influence.

jack_pp
4 replies
11h33m

What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism?

JumpCrisscross
3 replies
11h12m

What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism?

Wokeism as it pertains to social media's discussion of the woke mind virus. Everyone has an opinion on it. But it's not of practical relevance to most people, certainly not most voters. Sort of like modern art.

jack_pp
2 replies
6h54m

Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
50m

Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US

Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
49m

Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US

Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot, especially by a particular core who gain money and influence from it. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans. It certainly doesn’t build one a national platform.

conradev
4 replies
11h9m

I do agree that he is hyper fixated on specific things like gender

but – I do think that there are elements of the “woke mind virus” that are okay with censorship. I don’t think that censorship has any place in a democracy, and I do think it is a problem we need to address.

The executive branch asked Twitter to ban a NY Post story on the grounds that it was misinformation when it wasn’t. It was “malinformation”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malinformation

They didn’t correct the record, and Ro Khanna emailed Twitter to cut that shit out: https://www.businessinsider.com/khanna-emailed-twitter-free-...

I really don’t like Elon, but I fear the previous Twitter censors more. Media is supposed to keep the government in check and not the other way around.

pavlov
2 replies
10h2m

Musk’s Twitter actively censors and promotes content based on the personal whims of the billionaire owner. Is that really better for democracy?

The Twitter/X experiment seems to have primarily succeeded in demonstrating that nobody has good solutions for this problem, and just repeating words like “misinformation” and “free speech” doesn’t get us any closer to a solution.

Props to Bluesky for trying something else, at least.

jokethrowaway
1 replies
8h38m

The opposite was true before Musk.

Some friends have an ancap libertarian and they were targeted before.

Woke content is not censored and you can find it on X, it's just that most left-wing people left for alternatives.

I went to bluesky briefly and I was inundated by transgender explicit content. I didn't open it again.

pavlov
0 replies
7h52m

Musk censors mentions of his own daughter on X — the same person who he claimed was dead on a recent interview, but who is very much alive and posting on Threads.

That kind of monarch-like behavior didn’t exist on Twitter before Musk. Their protocols for hiding and removing content may have been very flawed, but at least there was a process.

jasonlotito
0 replies
9h50m

“ I do think that there are elements of the “woke mind virus” that are okay with censorship”

Then let’s not focus on some made up boogeyman and ignore the fact that in 2020, the executive at the time was happily reaching out to Twitter and other platforms asking them to remove posts. The guy Musk is supporting was happily asking Twitter to remove posts.

But let’s be clear, they were asking Twitter to enforce its rules. And you can argue that the government asking like that is illegal, but I’ve yet to see a guilty verdict in court so, until that happens, Twitter enforcing its rules isn’t censorship. No one has been denied their first amendment rights.

More importantly, by Musks own yardstick, Twitter is no longer the bastion of Free Speech it was when he took control. So regardless of what you think, Twitter is worse off now.

jokethrowaway
1 replies
8h41m

The reason I don't move to the USA is because of woke people, scary numbers of mental health and crime.

The reason I moved country is because woke politics is making life worse. Crime is through the roof, kids can't go out in the cities by themselves because it's too dangerous. They started doing mandatory "gender identity" education in school, teaching crap to my kids.

I'm still in Europe and observing a progressive decline so I'm ready to move to Asia, the Caribbean, South America (Argentina maybe?) or maybe switch to the enemy and go to Russia or China, depending on how the situation evolves.

Dictatorship for dictatorship, I just want a low tax, safe place and governments to bother me as little as possible.

johnisgood
0 replies
6h14m

Some countries in Eastern Europe actively opposes gender stuff (it is banned in education). I do not know why "gender" is being asked in the first place, it should be "sex", and that is biological. Why do we ask for gender on websites, for example? What is the purpose of it, really?

FranzFerdiNaN
1 replies
11h23m

He believes the woke mind virus is a threat because he has a trans kid.

wkat4242
0 replies
11h0m

Yeah so much for supporting your children in their chosen life path :'(

Imagine having to completely break contact with your own father because he hates who you are so much :'(

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61880709

lossolo
0 replies
5h17m

I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

Musk blames 'wokeness' for his daughter rejecting him after he didn't accept who she was. His entire conflict with the left and the 'woke' is centered around this one issue. He can't accept that he was rejected because of what he has done, so he needs someone else to blame and fight with. He bought X as his propaganda tool, he doesn't care about the consequences of his actions on society—he only wants to win.

Musk is primarily driven by a savior complex

I don't think that's correct, it seems more likely that he was always driven by an inferiority complex.

kelnos
0 replies
9h38m

I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

The issue is that many people who feel this way (seemingly Musk included) swing to the other extreme and embrace policy positions that only serve to further support and entrench systemic racism.

I'm not always comfortable with the methods and rhetoric of some social justice advocates, but I'm not going to present that as evidence that the movement they support is dangerous and we should strive for social injustice instead.

janalsncm
0 replies
7h47m

he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

If “woke” involves an understanding that media is mostly filtered through large corporations and crafts narratives used to serve the interests of the ruling class, I’m not surprised a billionaire owner of a media company would consider that a problem.

Rather than identifying actual problems people are facing, media wastes our time with irrelevant distractions. Don’t worry about the opioid epidemic. Don’t worry about the fact that kids increasingly can’t even read after graduating high school. Don’t worry about corporate consolidation and monopolies. You should be worrying about “wokeism”.

torginus
6 replies
7h42m

I really effing hate the idea that competition is created not because people with entrepreneurial spirit think they can do what SpaceX does cheaper and better, but because the guy running the show is politically undesirable and untrustworthy.

XorNot
5 replies
6h40m

But that's not the issue: the issue is that Musk alienated almost the entire core demographic who wanted to buy Tesla's, wanted to support electric cars and were more or less completely primed to freely promote the entire brand.

He is a man who owns an electric car company but has been pushing climate change denialism as his political position and supporting politicians who do.

There's competition because Tesla is not the dominant prime mover it's valuation implies it should be, and people have sensed - correctly - a market opening. No one I know recommends "buy a Tesla" anymore for your first electric car - they say buy a Hydundai Ioniq or wait for a Chinese brand to get cheaper.

People are actively embarrassed to drive Teslas, which in turn means there's a growing market for "anything but a Tesla...". And because of that all of the actual faults of a Tesla are paid that much more scrutiny.

torginus
0 replies
5h46m

Tbh, not sure what percentage of Tesla buyers are ideologically motivated, but having tried a couple electric cars, I still believe the Model 3 is the best EV outside the premium segment, period.

As for Musk, he's a weird one for sure. He made me realize that I don't know the politics of most CEOs (or even know who they are). Which is just as well, I don't want to ponder in the supermarket whether my bodywash is ideologically consistent with my shampoo.

someguydave
0 replies
4h42m

how many other products do you ideologically affiliate with?

jajko
0 replies
5h50m

Just a single man representing single family in Switzerland but you are right - I'll never buy anything from Tesla, couldn't care less if they are best or not (no they are not in 2024, novelty wore off some time ago with tons of competition, at least in Europe).

He showed his true colors, there is no correction possible, people just don't rewrite their core personality. Support for puttin' and overall war in Ukraine, support for dictators, very bad stance on many societal topics, treats his employees like slaves, proper piece of shit as a parent, utterly childish reactions of an immature boy rather than Man - we haven't seen the worst yet.

Brilliance in some aspects means nothing if its dragged down into mud by rest of personality. I know some still worship him for the positives and ignore or even appreciate the rest, I can't and won't.

darthrupert
0 replies
3h4m

I dislike Musk like many others, but I think Teslas are still the best EVs out there.

darthrupert
0 replies
3h3m

I dislike Musk like many others, but I think Teslas are still the best EVs out there and it's very possible that my next one is a Tesla too.

crossroadsguy
1 replies
11h7m

Musk stuck to what he's good at

Right. And that is?

excalibur
0 replies
10h58m

Occasional well-thought-out, ambitious, and positive talking points combined with a whole lot of keeping his mouth shut seemed to work pretty well for him.

input_sh
13 replies
12h29m

Who else is there to blame for Twitter refusing to designate a representative, leading to a ban?

I'm sure pre-Musk Twitter wouldn't have lost the entire market in the 7th most populous country.

extheat
6 replies
11h36m

There is much more story that you’re either uninformed about or willfully ignoring. The correct move was to remove people from harms way for decisions they have no control over, hence their staff exit from the country.

ben_w
4 replies
9h34m

The threats were themselves due to failing to follow a court order.

I'm not qualified to tell if the judge giving them is a partisan hack or not, just like I can't make that distinction with the judges that Musk appears to shop for in the US with what others describe as SLAPP lawsuits.

But obeying a judge isn't optional in either case.

luckylion
3 replies
7h35m

The threats were themselves due to failing to follow a court order.

To the individual representatives of a company? That's very rare, and not common like you make it sound.

"The company you're representing in this legal process hasn't complied with my orders so I will have you personally arrested".

ben_w
2 replies
5h23m

There are various accounts on Twitter which were being investigated etc. for criminal misconduct, Twitter was given a court order to block those accounts. I have no idea if that order was itself justified (IANAL and I don't speak Brazilian) but the orders were given by someone with authority to give them.

Twitter refused the order, which means that Twitter is interfering with the legal process in Brazil. This sounds like "contempt of court" to me, which is a thing which results in a judge sending people to prison — no idea what it is in Brazil, but IIRC the maximum penalty in my country of birth is 2 years' imprisonment.

Brazil's legal system requires companies like Twitter to have an office in the country in order to receive such orders, which I think means it's literally her job to make those orders happen. Regardless, by closing the office Twitter was directly violating Brazilian law.

As companies cannot themselves be imprisoned, I do not see what alternative there would be than directing obligations onto a specific human. Buck has to stop somewhere, and while I know a lot of people who would celebrate if this judge decided that the correct somewhere was "international arrest warrant/request extradition of Elon Musk personally", I suspect this judge would have to go through a few more checkboxes before that doesn't get "major diplomatic incident" written all over it.

(Perhaps less of an incident if it's concurrent with the EU saying "We're issuing Twitter with a 6% fine on their global annual turnover for non-compliance with the Digital Services Act", which seems to be another battle Musk is Leeroy-Jenkins-ing himself into).

luckylion
1 replies
1h15m

I can't think of any country I'd consider having a strong rule of law that would start arresting employees for the actions of their companies that they themselves have no say in.

Effectively, the judge makes it impossible for X to defend itself in court because he'll just have anyone arrested who tries. That's not something you'll find in the developed world these days.

ben_w
0 replies
9m

Effectively, the judge makes it impossible for X to defend itself in court because he'll just have anyone arrested who tries.

No, on two counts.

First, Twitter is free to seek out a lawyer to represent them in court. Most people hire lawyers for contract work rather than as a permanent employee, so this remains possible even with no assets within Brazil.

Second, there was nothing to be defended until they refused to comply with the lawfully given order within the required deadline.

That they chose to fire their staff member and close the office in order to prevent compliance with the lawfully given order, was an actual offence in its own right. To my limited understanding, it is also an offence in its own right to refuse a lawfully given court order. But in both cases, Twitter was not being punished until they actually broke the law.

Courts in the UK and the USA may issue an injunction, both to prohibit and/or to compel an action:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injunction (note in particular that interim injunctions may be given prior to a ruling on the case itself)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injunctions_in_English_law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interim_order

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quia_timet

And, pertinently to Starlink: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_freezing

Compare and contrast Twitter in Brazil with Lavabit in the USA: Lavabit was ordered to provide certain information in secret (with an injunction to not talk about it); they protested, they first provided that information in an obtuse form that was considered contempt, they provided it in a form which was acceptable, then they closed their business in response and took further legal action in response to what they — and, to be clear, I — consider to have been a manner incompatible with the public view of American Democracy:

"""Levison said that he could be arrested for closing the site instead of releasing the information, and it was reported that the federal prosecutor's office had sent Levison's lawyer an email to that effect."""

and

"""Levison wrote that after being contacted by the FBI, he was subpoenaed to appear in federal court, and was forced to appear without legal representation because it was served on such short notice; in addition, as a third party, he had no right to representation, and was not allowed to ask anyone who was not an attorney to help find him one. He also wrote that in addition to being denied a hearing about the warrant to obtain Lavabit's user information, he was held in contempt of court. The appellate court denied his appeal due to no objection, however, he wrote that because there had been no hearing, no objection could have been raised. His contempt of court charge was also upheld on the ground that it was not disputed; similarly, he was unable to dispute the charge because there had been no hearing to do it in."""

close04
0 replies
9h39m

Musk and his people officially don’t have any control over political decisions taken in any country, be it Brazil, Germany, or even home in the US. And they shouldn’t but by virtue of a ton of money thrown towards politicians, and general US global influence, many times this happens.

So your explanation should be rewritten as “remove people from the way of legal consequences from breaking local laws they/Musk can’t control (buy) in their favor”.

It sounds like the same thing but it’s the difference between fleeing persecution and fleeing prosecution.

mikrotikker
5 replies
9h46m

Better to stand strong in the principles of the 1st amendment than bend the knee to a foreign government. Free speech is the milk of the gods, the US constitution is something to be coveted...

pjc50
1 replies
8h55m

From the Brazilian position, it's better for them not to bend to a foreign non-government organization which has been assisting people trying to overthrow the Brazilian Constitution.

But HN seems to think that Brazilians are NPCs without politics or constitution of their own.

mikrotikker
0 replies
5h36m

Yes well that is their choice if they want to be authoritarians and inhibit the free speech of their citizens. Keep Twitter banned.

moefh
1 replies
9h23m

It's hard to believe that's what's happening, since Musk has previously agreed to censor posts for a foreign government[1], writing at the time:

    The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety
    or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?” 
One difference in that case is that Musk had close business ties to that government, so read in that whatever you want.

[1] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors...

johnisgood
0 replies
6h5m

Limiting access due to technical reasons is not censorship. That said, I have no clue that this is what is actually happening.

the_why_of_y
0 replies
7h11m

Twitter routinely complies with censorship demands by foreign governments, especially right-wing authoritarian ones.

https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-or...

Since Musk took ownership, the company has received 971 government demands, and fully complied with 808 of them. Before Musk, Twitter's full compliance rate hovered around 50%; since the takeover, it is over 80%.

kstenerud
36 replies
10h1m

Looking at the responses, I can see that people are still viewing this through the limited lens of left vs right.

This is of course a thing in that nobody can hide their colors anymore, but I'm specifically talking about the rich now feeling empowered enough that they even have the hubris to challenge governments of the world for their own benefit, and in some cases even build their own empires to escape the limitations of governments by forming their own rich-people-only worlds.

For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/magazine/prospera-hondura...

So long as you continue fighting left vs right, you're fighting the wrong enemy.

mikrotikker
19 replies
9h49m

Free speech is all that matters. Musk is not perfect by any means here but he is better than the rest. He is exporting the 1st amendment to us nations who don't get to experience such freedoms. Which is what Twitter should have been doing, instead of kowtowing to the likes of the German and Saudi govts among others...

kstenerud
8 replies
8h50m

Free speech is a dog whistle. We can't have actual "free speech" in the pure sense of the term (just like we can't have pure democracy) because it would erode public confidence and destroy our democratic nations in the process.

And there are outside actors currently working hard to ensure that this happens, because they want a return to the old imperial world order (where powerful nations capture territory and expand, and weaker nations die at their hands and are colonized).

klrmvn
3 replies
8h32m

It is sad that free speech became a dog whistle. Post WW2 up to at least 2000 free speech was a strong position of the left, Noam Chomsky being one of the most prominent examples.

Musk isn't hard right. There is a lot of overlap positions between him and Bill Clinton (the original one from the 1990s, I do not know what he says now), except that Musk is anti-war and obviously talks like he was on Usenet.

I can't understand that software engineers, who vigorously defended free speech and also the somewhat trollish communication style up to at least 2010, came to be assimilated and reprogrammed by their employers.

Even Zuckerberg now backpedals and says that Covid censorship and suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story was a mistake.

kstenerud
1 replies
8h19m

Even Zuckerberg now backpedals and says that Covid censorship and suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story was a mistake.

It's easy to say with the benefit of hindsight what was a mistake and what was not. Some things need to be censored - that's how it's always been. The question, of course, is WHAT needs to be censored, HOW MUCH it needs to be censored, HOW it should be censored, and WHO decides.

In the old days, it was easy: If it wasn't on prime time (TV, major newspapers, syndicated radio), it didn't exist. And this cabal served us well, providing a small number of voices to tell people who they were and what to believe.

Now with a potentially unlimited number of voices going up and down in popularity with unprecedented speed and across nations, we're headed into unknown territory, so there are going to be a lot of mistakes, and nobody can know for sure if our nations can even survive it.

bluescrn
0 replies
6h11m

Some things need to be censored - that's how it's always been.

No. There are very few things that 'need to be censored' by the government (or corporations with almost government-level power), and it's hard to think of any beyond CSAM or legitimate threats to national security.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things that children should be protected from. But we're failing miserably at that. They're watching extreme porn and gore while the censors are focusing on silencing adults with the wrong political views.

okr
0 replies
6h56m

Because they are old and have families now. Metoo and toxic behaviours did the rest. And, it is just not that important.

For me, Musk/Trump is indeed fresh trollish air in all this seriousness and iam astounded, that no one else enjoys it. But i also have the feeling, it is a last breath before police state takes over. Because a state can not allow its citizen to go rogue.

FollowingTheDao
1 replies
8h33m

Free speech is a dog whistle. We can't have actual "free speech" in the pure sense of the term

If you are in the U.S I am sorry you have this take on free speech, because it is distorted.

Free speech is defined by law and the law is clear. Freedom of speech means the free and public expression of opinions without censorship, interference and restraint by the government.

bigstrat2003
0 replies
3h25m

That is untrue and a very frustrating error (because it's so common). Freedom of speech is an ideal that one should be able to speak their mind without retaliation. The First Amendment is the law which guarantees freedom of speech with respect to the government. The two are not the same, and private actors can (and often do) violate freedom of speech.

klrmvn
0 replies
8h23m

The Soviet Union supported anti war, peace protests and free speech in leftist groups, but most of it was organic.

Russia purportedly supports free speech right wing groups, though I think the problem is vastly overstated in order to discredit them. Most of this is organic,too.

Whatever is the case, left or right, we cannot let our own beliefs be dictated by whatever Russia supports or co-opts at any given time. Similarly, vegetarians should not abolish their beliefs just because a notorious 20th century dictator was also a vegetarian.

idunnoman1222
0 replies
4h21m

Ah yes, free speech: the final death knoll of western democracy.

kristiandupont
2 replies
9h15m

But Musk doesn't care about free speech, he is actively and eagerly suppressing it as well, just for the other team.

namaria
0 replies
5h27m

That man will say anything, I don't know why anyone would pay attention to it.

itsoktocry
0 replies
4h57m

Yes, no one is truly "unbiased" or without opinions. This is not new.

But giving the "other team" a voice (my team, in some ways) is valuable, and we aren't going to give it up easily.

And please, don't point to the fact that there are right-wing loons on Twitter, because there are crazies from all sides all over the internet.

dspillett
2 replies
7h44m

> Musk is not perfect by any means

Musk is not perfect by any means wrt free speech.

His version of being a free speech absolutist is that people who agree with him should absolutely have the right to free speech.

bluescrn
1 replies
6h24m

His version of being a free speech absolutist is that people who agree with him should absolutely have the right to free speech.

So he's merely an equal and opposite reaction to what the other tribe have been doing for ages?

He didn't fundamentally change Twitter. He bought a powerful propaganda tool/weapon and aimed it in the opposite direction.

(I suppose he's also using it as his own personal megaphone, whereas the previous owners would merely ensure that chosen voices were amplified/suppressed rather than using their own voices directly)

Not sure how we start to approach some sort of disarmament process when it comes to these propaganda weapons, though.

dspillett
0 replies
2h45m

> So he's merely an equal and opposite reaction

> He bought a powerful propaganda tool/weapon and aimed it in the opposite direction.

I'd say not. I don't think twitter itself wasn't aimed directly in any direction before Musk, other than “away from where firing may cause twitter problems”. They operated from a position of cowardice rather than political bias.

Sometimes this was towards the right because there was a fairly centrist or centre-left¹ bias online, but it often very much wasn't. For a clear case of them not aiming at the right, look at them leaving Trump and many like him alone at a time when they were flagrantly going against twitter policies, but slapping them for that would have caused too much grief back at them. It may be a complete coincidence², but Musk first started getting really serious about taking over around the time twitter started cracking down on that group (having joked about it prior to that IIRC, though it did take over a full year for his first actual takeover bid to happen).

----

[1] These definitions are difficult. Often what America seems to see as centre-left or even actually moderate left, is things that many over this side of the big pond would see as more centrist.

[2] Though I strongly suspect not.

latexr
1 replies
7h4m

Twitter has demonstrably kowtowed more to authoritarian governments under Musk.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/elon-musk-censors-twitter-in...

And he regularly bans journalists who don’t lick his boots.

https://newrepublic.com/post/177936/twitter-suspends-account...

Stop listening to what he says and pay attention to what he does. You’re being swindled.

He is exporting the 1st amendment to us nations who don't get to experience such freedoms.

This is particularly absurd. “The first amendment” isn’t a paragon of freedom unique to the US. And it only applies to government censorship. You can’t “export it” to other countries by means of a social network.

itsoktocry
0 replies
5h5m

Stop listening to what he says and pay attention to what he does. You’re being swindled.

I am paying attention to what he does. I use Twitter for hours every day.

The point is less about "free speech", because of course you're right, this is Musk's version of free speech.

But the real issue to the left is that he's allowing speech that, in recent history, has been considered "dissenting" or restricted. The fact that in the past week we have had Zuck come out and say Facebook was pressured to censor COVID19 materials and that we have mainstream politicians and bureaucrats calling to THROW MUSK IN JAIL is insane. Utterly insane.

The people behind this are getting found out, and there will be political consequences.

rixed
0 replies
8h52m

Not sure X posture against censure is to be taken seriously though. From Al Jazeera:

In India, he agreed with an order imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take down accounts and posts related to a farmers’ protest that swept through the country in February, their demands including guaranteed prices for their produce and debt waivers.

(https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/31/brazil-moves-to-blo...)

notahacker
0 replies
8h18m

According to its own statistics, Musk's Twitter complied with 83% of government takedown requests compared with 50% in the year before it was taken over, and he's found plenty of novel grounds for kicking people off Twitter for things which annoy him.

Obviously for people whose idea of freedom of speech begins and ends at actively promoting vice signalling in regimes which have some degree of speech protection whilst doing exactly what an autocrat like Erdogan asks because "you can't go beyond the laws of a country", Musk represents an improvement, but that doesn't have anything to do with promoting First Amendment ideology overseas.

AnonymousPlanet
11 replies
8h35m

As an outsider, I can't help but feel that the American election system that boils everything down to just two parties imposes a limited binary lens onto at least the American view of the world.

kstenerud
3 replies
8h27m

It happens in multiparty systems as well. All it takes is a significant portion of the population feeling like their voices are not heard, and then one of the parties taking up their banner as one part of the overall campaign (which doesn't even have to be in their new constituents' interests).

This is happening all over Europe as we speak. And even though it happens to be extreme-right atm, it doesn't have to be. We've seen extreme-left revivals in the past as well.

tm-guimaraes
2 replies
8h5m

And Europe is actually resisting better than US due to election system. Here in best case scenario they are number 2, and took them a long time to get there after Trump

In the US, a populist just needs to win a primary, ie 50% of 50% of the American votes, and he is immediately at least nr2 in the run, and they get the support of one of the major parties.

Saying that populists / extremists also exist in Europe is just a bad comparison.

akie
1 replies
5h59m

The extreme right won the Dutch elections though - and they’re not the only country - so your argument that “best case (...) number 2” isn’t true. They can and do win elections.

acdha
0 replies
5h14m

What did winning mean, though? Is it Republican-style minority rule where they can work the system push through policies which a majority of Americans oppose, or a coalition government where half of his coalition is pledged to rein in his more extreme positions?

throwaway2037
2 replies
8h2m

Are French Presidential elections so different? And the UK only has two major parties, so the outcome will be similar.

XorNot
0 replies
6h48m

The UK system has a much less powerful Executive though.

To be clear: FPTP is terrible, but the reason the UK system isn't as broken as the US one is because the correct functioning of the Legislature is much more vital to the overall system - i.e. 3 viable parties can exist because they're fighting over hundreds of seats, and then it's by the Legislature that the Prime Minister is chosen - rather then by direct vote.

NeoTar
0 replies
6h59m

The French system, with its two rounds system has a built-in protection against extremism and to encourage compromise.

The UK is also a FPTP system, but has strong parties outside of the two main, for instance in the last general election over 42% of people voted for a party other than Labour or the Conservatives.

[admittedly that’s an outlier, but looking over the last few elections at least around 20% went to parties outside of the big two]

chipdart
1 replies
8h18m

As an outsider, I can't help but feel that the American election system that boils everything down to just two parties imposes a limited binary lens onto at least the American view of the world.

I don't think that the American election system holds any relevance to the problem.

The problem is fueling divisiveness to manipulate people with a "us vs them" mentality.

How else can you force working class people to vote against their best interests, such as taxing the rich fairly, ensuring access to affordable health care, uphold basic workers rights, without resorting to blatant fearmongering and moral outrage with bullshit like "they want post-birth abortions, impose sexual abuse in schools, import scary criminal gangs from distant foreign lands, etc"?

Not to mention the industrial level of propaganda dumped by foreign actors to destabilize democratic nations.

thechao
0 replies
4h1m

My wife is a nationally recognized expert in elections in the US. The combination of FPTP and politically controlled district geometry (gerrymandering) explicitly creates a brittle system that engenders extremism. It's well understood to be both the cause and a reinforcement mechanism. The mechanism we have now was left in place in the early 19th c. explicitly to allow a small minority to be able to control their individual states. The main change since then has been cross-state unification of the party system. To give an example: here, in Texas, the most volatile Federal district was won by a representative who received only 10% of the votes in his district. Some districts were won by reps with as few as 1% of the total votes (that's total turnout). (This is due to the primary mechanism and gerrymandering.) If you can win by harnessing just 10% of the electorate, you're shopping around for the ironclad voters, and they tend to have weird views (left or right).

jajko
0 replies
6h3m

No country that I know of adopted US election system. Its beyond obscure, unfair and set to be rigged for anybody looking from outside, with no normal way out. Its just not resilient enough to everchanging society. I know the historical reasons, but only fools get stuck in the past ways at all costs 'because, you know, in the past, XYZ so we are where we are so suck it up' when its clearly not beneficial to general population.

One reasons out of ocean of reasons - number of actual votes for X or Y is irrelevant, its all about blocks based on some old history nobody should care about much anymore that decide winner. Freedom of choice is very limited, strong populists like trump have much bigger and long lasting effect than in more multipolar elections.

But for sure its a spectacle for masses for a good year and polarizes society for whatever bad reasons there are, that should be concerned about more serious topics than this.

bravetraveler
0 replies
6h9m

Intentional false dichotomy serves many purposes, yes

TacticalCoder
1 replies
5h49m

You got to be kidding me... Prospera / Honduras is nothing. It doesn't register. Libertarians, sadly I'd add, shall never ever have an ounce of success: all the powers that be in this world are out there to crush liberties, everywhere, worldwide.

Meanwhile The New York Times is titling an article: "The constitution is scared, but is it dangerous?"

There's nothing more belonging to the rich than the mainstream media, including the NYT. They were the people selling you the FTX scam and explaining you SBF was the second coming of Christ.

Now that Harris wants to "force congress to ban guns in her 100 days, or take executive orders if congress doesn't do it", of course that the NYT is publishing about the constitution being potentially dangerous.

And the problem is... Prospera in Honduras?

As long as you keep reading The NYT, you're fighting the wrong enemy.

sigseg1v
0 replies
3h29m

I'm not an American but

congress to ban guns

This sounds desperately needed and like an exceptionally great idea to most people that don't live inside the US bubble.

Maybe broaden your horizons a bit?

strken
0 replies
7h53m

I quite like charter cities, at least in theory, and I'm a little annoyed that everyone sees them as an attempt at world domination. They could let us A/B test legal frameworks, and I think that's neat.

Hopefully someone who isn't a hard libertarian bankrolls one soon so they don't get pigeonholed as places for exactly one ideology.

dspillett
0 replies
7h54m

> So long as you continue fighting left vs right, you're fighting the wrong enemy.

The problem is that there seems to be a large overlap between that enemy⁰ and certain arguments on the right side of left/right political debates, so it is very difficult to separate the two even on those matters where that overlap isn't actually present.

The matter is made worse because right-leaning political groups are less ideologically opposed to being influenced by that enemy's main power: being able to buy stuff/opinions/people.

----

[0] I assume you are meaning the arsehole rich¹ here

[1] There are some nice hyper-rich out there, but they aren't as vocal as the others so we don't hear much from/about them – much like the more moderate people with right-leaning views, who aren't heard over the yelling of others.

wkat4242
7 replies
11h6m

To be honest with the current polarisation levels in politics it's no longer possible to be neutral. The conservative side is now even strongarming companies into abandoning their diversity programs! This is just really not ok, I'm part of the LGBTIQ+ support network in our company and this kind of thing is really making waves. People are worried, even though we're a Europe based company where this is not a contested topic (though we do have many offices in the US). See what happened to Ford, Jack Daniels, Harley Davidson, and many others. Decades of progress are being thrown out the window.

Many US companies are now feeling forced to choose a side. At least I now know which to boycott..

lolinder
2 replies
5h49m

Hi! I'm neutral.

DEI was a political statement—one that you agreed with and felt was necessary. Abandoning DEI is also a political statement—one that you disagree with and think is not okay.

You're welcome to disagree with the people who disagree with DEI, but I'd hesitate to claim that these companies were "strongarmed" into it—the programs always existed as a political tool for the company to curry favor, not as something that was added for its intrinsic practical or moral value. The political climate has changed, which means they no longer serve their true purpose.

The important takeaway from this reversal is that the progressive theory of change that's been leaned on for the past few decades was a bad one. We thought that a lot of progress had been made, but it turns out it was all surface level and easy to undo when the pressure to keep up appearances went away or reversed. "We need to do this because it will look bad if we don't" is a very fickle tool for motivating real change.

wkat4242
1 replies
56m

Well companies are by their very nature immoral. They don't care about any kind of morals, just making money. You even have to strongarm them into following the law (see Boeing, Volkswagen etc).

lolinder
0 replies
39m

Yes. Which is why lasting change will never come from persuading the leadership of companies that your personal set of morals need to be followed if they want to be successful—they'll follow you for as long as you are powerful and bail as soon as you aren't.

You have to change hearts and minds within the broader population in order to bring lasting power towards change, but that's something that the modern crop of progressives entirely gave up on 10+ years ago in favor of racing to the finish line and declaring victory prematurely.

(Cue comments that the right can't be reasoned with so there's no point in trying.)

mike_hearn
1 replies
7h2m

It's absolutely contested in Europe. "Why is the NHS spending so much money on diversity officials when they don't have enough doctors" is a long standing complaint by many people and politicians in the UK, for example.

wkat4242
0 replies
6h59m

True there's some exceptions. The UK has indeed fallen to American-style polarisation. As have the Netherlands where an extreme-right regime now reigns.

But most of Europe is still sane, luckily.

Ps rather than blaming transsexualism it might be smarter to blame the Tories who have been skimming (and selling off to their own companies) the NHS until there was nothing left.

itsoktocry
1 replies
4h42m

The conservative side is now even strongarming companies into abandoning their diversity programs! This is just really not ok, I'm part of the LGBTIQ+ support network in our company and this kind of thing is really making waves.

Sorry pal, you're going to have to make it on merits, not your gender or skin color.

See what happened to Ford, Jack Daniels, Harley Davidson, and many others. Decades of progress are being thrown out the window.

Racial quotas in the workplace is not progress.

At least I now know which to boycott..

Oh, so your boycotts are fine? Classic leftist hypocrisy.

wkat4242
0 replies
1h15m

Sorry pal, you're going to have to make it on merits, not your gender or skin color.

I'm not advocating for positive discrimination. Just no discrimination at all.

It's very important to have the proper procedures in place for when that does happen. That was part of the diversity programs. Programs against bullying, education for managers on gender identity and how to deal with the difficulties around them, how to pick up on bullying etc. It's this kind of thing that I do myself (not as a job but as a voluntary side assignment in my job). It's amazing what kind of sexism and racism you hear when you go on a company trip and have a few drinks with high-level managers. So clearly this work is still highly needed.

Don't forget these programs were started because things were going the wrong way, people who were different than the standard cishetero white male had less chance to a job and were making less money when they did get one. This is of course not acceptable.

I don't think quotas are the answer. But rather fines when a company goes too far askew. "We only hire white cristians here" just cannot be acceptable.

Racial quotas in the workplace is not progress.

That was only one small part of the diversity programs, and not one I necessarily agree with.

Oh, so your boycotts are fine? Classic leftist hypocrisy.

I never said boycotts are wrong anyway. If right wingers want to boycott companies like Apple, go ahead.

roenxi
4 replies
12h54m

We've been living in a fantasy land of "no political affiliation" in the tech world for decades

Which "we" are you speaking for? That doesn't sound like the tech world, we've had a lot of explicitly political tech movements over the years. Off the top of my head some of the more successful and major ones were:

- Cryptography.

- Free Software.

- Cryptocurrency.

The Silicon Valley based companies have been politically active since at least 2016, there have been a couple of political exoduses by various groups to alternative platforms. The non-Silicon-Valley companies have been worse and generally suspect to the point where nobody expected political apathy (is anyone going to claim that Chinese social media are not politically subordinate to the state?).

diffeomorphism
2 replies
12h42m

"Politically affiliated" is something very different than "political".

roenxi
1 replies
12h34m

If you figure out what that difference is, let me know. The tech scene has been decidedly liberal (old school liberal, nowadays people maybe call that libertarian) and as political as it can be since the start. There has been a trend where other political cultures are getting involved too since ... probably the Obama campaign was when politicians really started noticing that spreading messages through the internet was more effective than going through the corporate news. But that is just a change of affiliations (maybe more accurately a broadening), tech has always been affiliated with someone.

ben_w
0 replies
2h19m

"Political" is anything related to inter-personal power in society, and can be anything from maintaining a homeowner's association bylaws to international spy-craft and assassinations, and is so broad as to be unavoidable in human behaviour.

"Political affiliation" is much narrower and comes with a specific named politician or political party — even if they're not going to get in, such as Lord Buckethead or the Green Party of America.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
11h59m

Which "we" are you speaking for? That doesn't sound like the tech world...Silicon Valley based companies have been politically active since at least 2016

That was the tipping point. Before Trump, it was common to hear techies in the Bay Area proudly proclaim that they didn't concern themselves with politics. (Reminds me of the way aristocratic Europeans talk about commerce.)

Tech always had views on policy. But it wasn't outwardly opinionated on politics, certainly not partisan politics, in the overt (and influential) way that it is today.

motbus3
0 replies
3h22m

I am talking about sonic the movie obviously.

I don't think dr Eggman should be able to attack in that way.

There is no proof but there was a threat and retaliation which is a terrible precedent.

It is like Eggman attacking Sonic for something that Shadow did.

kcmastrpc
0 replies
5h30m

As opposed to its previous owners? Don't let those shades get too dark, friend.

hereme888
0 replies
12h58m

yup, just read the comment.

dspillett
0 replies
8h5m

> And it's not just Musk.

You are definitely correct there. Twitter was a shit-show in this regard long before Musk came along and made it worse. They did far too little to enforce their own policies (let alone common decency) on things like bullying and hate content for far too long, for fear of losing users and therefore advertising money or being punished because some of those openly breaking those rules were in high power at the time, and this led to an “open season” feeling for all sides.

[for the avoidance of doubt: I've never had a twitter account, after the initial novelty stage it has always been far too full of the sort of people that think twitter is a good idea]

Dalewyn
0 replies
12h54m

once again

When has the rich not been more or less 1:1 with The Powers That Be(tm)?

The form changes with the sands of time, but the essence is always the same.

delichon
16 replies
18h30m

Does Bluesky intend to be responsive to the kind of court orders that X rejected?

pfraze
6 replies
18h6m

Speaking entirely personally as I don't handle those questions at bsky. I couldn't even begin to comment without seeing knowing what the court orders were and what the cases are. Every social company operating internationally runs into this issue, and it's daunting to say the least. So, again, this is not something I decide.

What I can say is that the protocol is a neutral global layer for data, which can then enable multiple applications with their own moderation policies and decisions. There's always going to be moderation decisions we make that people will disagree with. The point is that something can be done about that disagreement - you can have other applications on the same network that makes their own decisions. I think one of the best things that could happen is that Brazilian developers fork the Bluesky app and build locally-owned social platforms on the atmosphere.

Kye
2 replies
18h1m

Context: atmosphere is like "Fediverse" but for the AT protocol and also way more schway

chrisweekly
1 replies
15h33m

I had to check, and urbandictionary confirms, "schway" is

"A word to use when something is astonishingly cool, fashionable, or popular."
Kye
0 replies
12h59m

I got it from Batman Beyond.

antimemetics
0 replies
6h2m

Rather someone on Twitter shared some text - these aren’t the original court orders - they are at best a paraphrase by someone with a certain agenda.

throwaway48476
0 replies
16h46m

Brazilian developers fork the Bluesky app and build locally-owned social platforms on the atmosphere.

This makes it easy to send thugs to their house and 'encourage' them to comply with any political demand. Jurisdictional arbitrage, particularly sites hosted in America following the first amendment is the only thing keeping anti authoritarian speech alive in authoritarian regimes.

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/audio-pakistan-global-critics

mwilcox
3 replies
18h8m

Clearly given he is excited to receive the traffic

meiraleal
1 replies
18h4m

Interestingly, the cohort moving to Bluesky isn't the same as those who were having trouble with the law.

siproprio
0 replies
16h46m

Yes. Brazilians were censored and moved to bluesky. Elon musk has problems with the law! Absolutely no overlap whatsoever. Also very interesting in its own way.

jrflowers
0 replies
17h45m

Can you elaborate on this? I’m not clear what you mean here.

crossroadsguy
3 replies
11h1m

Something tells me at the least bsky will not begin a name calling primary school attack with a supreme court justice of a sovereign nation while using abusive names for the president of that country all the while using childish fake AI generated graphics.

PS. Somehow all of this feels very natural when done by Musk. It kind of makes sense. It feels like “yes yes, he’d do this”.

rapsey
2 replies
10h54m

A supreme court judge clearly acting against the laws of their state, but somehow Musk is the bad guy.

bilvar
1 replies
10h31m

We arrived at the point that people are celebrating censorship and authoritarianism because of their irrational hatred of one guy.

Ygg2
0 replies
9h54m

That's how it always works. "You see the problem with not dealing with XYZ is that the government/judicial/legislative doesn't have enough power to tackle XYZ."

You grant them power they asked. They don't deal with it, but ask for more power. At some point they stop asking and label you as the problem.

mensetmanusman
0 replies
16h32m

No, it is a game of whack a mole.

louhike
1 replies
17h24m

That’s interesting. Why do you use event sourcing? Is having a full history important for a website/app like bluesky?

pfraze
0 replies
17h12m

Ahhh you know what, I should call it stream processing or something, because we don't store the data entirely as events. We store the data as a mutable K/V which emits an event stream of changes, which can then be ingested into different views. We chose not to store changes as events specifically because we don't want unbounded growth in the system. Initial syncs work by fetching the current state of the K/V store (the "data repo").

Bluesky is built on atprotocol (atproto.com) and can be thought of as an open distributed system. The event stream is for replicating throughout the various services.

geekodour
1 replies
16h53m

hi pfraze, can u tell us a bit more about the golang event stream? does it also trigger the computation of the views periodically?

more precisely wanted to understand how do you generate the event stream from sqlite

pfraze
0 replies
16h30m

In my previous description, I avoided talking about atproto details for clarity, but this is all part of that (atproto.com). The "kv stores" are what we call data repos[1] and they use sqlite for storage, but can produce individual event streams. Those streams flow into the golang event stream, aka the "relay". View computation happens continuously.

1. data repos are actually signed merkle trees, which gives at-rest authentication of the data as it gets shipped across organizational boundaries

johnisgood
0 replies
6h29m

Hmm, it is something I would use Elixir for.

johnchristopher
0 replies
9h59m

Thanks for the details !

I wonder about:

Hybrid on-prem & cloud.

I wonder about the factors/considerations that led to hosting a given data/services on-prem or outside. Were there purely technical considerations or were there also about "self host what can't get leaked" (think GDPR, privacy concerns, things like that) ?

Angostura
0 replies
7h43m

I'm just trying to work out why I'm seeing so many posts in Portguese when all my settings are set to English

pfraze
142 replies
19h15m

Copying over my latest backend status update; figure folks would find it interesting

Servers are holding up so far! Fortunately we were overprovisioned. If we hit 4mm new signups then things should get interesting. We did have some degradations (user handles entering an invalid state, event-stream crashed a couple times, algo crashed a couple times, image servers hit bad latencies) but we managed to avoid a full outage.

We use an event-sourcing model which is: K/V database for primary storage (actually sqlite), into a golang event stream, then into scylladb for computed views. Various separate services for search, algorithms, and images. Hybrid on-prem & cloud. There are ~20 of the k/v servers, 1 event-stream, 2 scylla clusters (I believe).

The event-stream crash would cause the application to stop making progress on ingesting events, but we still got the writes, so you'd see eg likes failing to increment the counter but then magically taking effect 60 seconds later. Since the scylla cluster and the KV stores stayed online, we avoided a full outage.

pcwalton
117 replies
16h37m

It's frustrating that anything related to X/Twitter is such a predictably-partisan tinderbox because this is really interesting technical information. Thank you for sharing it!

kstenerud
116 replies
13h26m

It's partisan/political because Musk is partisan/political. And it's not just Musk.

We've been living in a fantasy land of "no political affiliation" in the tech world for decades, and now that the age of the hyper-rich has come once again, they are realizing the benefits of using the power they wield to shape the worlds they live in.

So now in the early stages of this century's great fight, we'll see our beloved tech giants join the political fray in full force, dragging their follower armies along for the ride.

And it works, too. Just look at the comments here.

nox101
60 replies
12h50m

so strange for you to blame this on Musk. Twitter was already super partisan long before he took it over

JumpCrisscross
45 replies
12h46m

Twitter was already super partisan long before he took it over

Sure. But Elon changed teams. He used to be bipartisan. But he chose a champion in the aftermath of Covid and--by the looks of it--he's chosen a bad one.

(In an alternate universe where Musk stuck to what he's good at, I could see the entire Artemis programme being delegated to SpaceX and a bipartisan adoption of Tesla as America's EV standard bearer. Instead, there is real political capital in creating a rival to SpaceX. And Tesla is going to have to constantly be on the defence against cheap Chinese imports from the Democrats and establishment Republicans.)

pfannkuchen
35 replies
12h24m

I think people see Musk differently from how he actually is. Or at least how he sees himself.

He has always said, for many years, that he got into SpaceX to work towards the goal of making humans a multiplanetary species, and he got into electric cars to work towards the goal of having a sustainable energy society.

I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society, and if that threat isn’t addressed then the other goals don’t matter because society will collapse before they can be realized.

From a near term business perspective his political actions are dumb, but from a personal motivation perspective they make total sense.

Or in other words, Musk is primarily driven by a savior complex, not greed (which is unfortunate for investors).

jdietrich
16 replies
11h44m

I remember when the Toyota Prius was a potent symbol of everything that was wrong with smug liberals. Lazy comedians still use the Prius as a punchline. Why doesn't a Tesla Model 3 carry the same sort of political baggage? Why don't right-wing conspiracy theorists consider Musk to be part of the "WHO/WEF globalist elite", despite the fact that he's a tech billionaire who is literally trying to plug people's brains into The Matrix and colonise space?

By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan. Maybe he does really believe all of that stuff about "the woke mind virus", or maybe he realised that he can buy a priceless amount of political capital amongst people who would instinctively hate the goals of his project just by uttering the right incantations.

ZeroGravitas
6 replies
11h3m

Weirdly Hybrids have now become a climate denial fave.

In any thread about EVs there is a typical HN commenter desperate to tell you that they drive a hybrid, not an EV like those silly virtue signalers.

For those who remember the vicious attacks on the Prius it's a wild shift in attitude.

wordofx
5 replies
10h35m

Weird how pointing out climate change inaccuracies destroyed scientific debate.

In any thread about climate change they are desperate to tell you that you’re a climate denier when you point out inaccurate information.

For those who remember the vicious attacks on science, we called that the dark ages.

pavlov
3 replies
9h51m

In the late 1990s there were still medical scientists who questioned the causal link between HIV and AIDS. This was at a time when effective drugs were already approved and saving lives.

Those scientists believed they were asking reasonable questions and pointing out potential inaccuracies. But imagine you were an HIV positive patient in 1995 and you latched on to this scientific debate to conclude that probably you should just eat a lot of vitamins and things will work out fine, since the scientists can’t seemingly even agree on whether you’ll get AIDS…

This is not a theoretical example. AIDS denialism cost hundreds of thousands of lives during roughly 1995-2005. There was a Nobel prize winner (Kary Mullis) who supported the movement with his authority despite never having done any HIV research. The government of South Africa was also involved for their own political reasons.

It was a lot like today’s climate change denialism and needs to be remembered. The major difference is that the personal consequences of HIV denialism were felt within a few years on an individual level, so the matter was resolved within decades. With climate change, it’s going to take a century and today’s denialists won’t be around to feel the effects.

FollowingTheDao
1 replies
8h24m

In the late 1990s there were still medical scientists who questioned the causal link between HIV and AIDS

This is how science works. Being right is not "science". Science is verb. If the questioners were right we would be calling them heroes.

pavlov
0 replies
7h7m

I said as much in my comment, pointing out that these scientists with differing takes were not the bad guys: “These scientists believed they were asking reasonable questions and pointing out potential inaccuracies.”

The bad guys were the people who took this receding debate within the field as evidence of conspiracies and worse, and convinced thousands of people to treat their AIDS condition with quackery instead of effective drugs derived from the HIV-AIDS theory. The organized denialism killed people. That’s not science.

kelnos
0 replies
9h27m

With climate change, it’s going to take a century and today’s denialists won’t be around to feel the effects.

The thing that is so maddening is that we're already feeling the effects of climate change, but the denialists just claim those effects either aren't really happening, or are caused by something else (without bothering to define "something else").

bgarbiak
0 replies
9h27m

"Pointing out inaccurate information" in HN comments is not scientific debate, nor a science.

FranzFerdiNaN
2 replies
11h19m

Funny thing is that he is poisoning his own well by making leftwing people , who are much more likely to drive an EV, abhor him and Tesla.

It’s not only happening in the US but has also started to happen in other countries like Australia.

amarant
0 replies
9h40m

It's in full swing here in Sweden too. Me and a close colleague bought new cars a couple of months apart. My left-leaning teammates who are usually pretty climate aware only offered congratulations to my colleagues new gasgussler, but had some criticisms for me who bought a Tesla.

I found it weird tho, like fair, they were pissed about Twitter, but surely the planet is the bigger issue?

Musk has pissed off the left to the point where the left is not thinking clearly about him and his companies anymore. Regardless of what you think about Musk, Tesla is actually pretty great.

LightBug1
0 replies
9h52m

Yup - the hole turned me off so much I've switched my first EV buy to Hyundai ioniq 5 (N if my wife authorises it LOL) ... not saying they're any better but it's a branding thing ... I couldn't stand to be associated with anything to do with that hole.

jorvi
1 replies
9h50m

By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan.

There is a significant amount of people choosing to not purchase a Tesla because they don’t want to be associated with Mr. Musk.

SpaceX is more insulated because there is essentially no alternative. If Yspace existed, I’m sure a significant amount of people would choose to champion that instead.

I think you’re vastly underselling how much Mr Musk his communications and his association with the new hyperbigoted misinformation-hub Xitter has turned people to dislike him, powerful and influential one’s among them.

kelnos
0 replies
9h30m

There is a significant amount of people choosing to not purchase a Tesla because they don’t want to be associated with Mr. Musk.

Yep, and I know people who have sold their Teslas because they don't want to be associated with Musk any longer.

dageshi
1 replies
9h25m

If you want an honest answer to Prius vs Tesla, it's because Prius was seen as a slower and lamer version of existing cars for people who didn't care about cars. While Tesla's could get from 0-60 faster than hypercars of the time.

Tesla's offered an experience in terms of pure acceleration off the line that actually made them cool, even people who might never buy one wouldn't mind experiencing one off the line.

notahacker
0 replies
7h38m

Yep. And he could have effortlessly achieved tolerability in most right wing circles that reflexively dislike "smug liberals" simply by not saying "smug liberal" stuff whilst encouraging right wingers to talk up what a great capitalist innovator he was, running red state targeted ad campaigns and making a pickup truck that people that normally drive gas-guzzlers would actually want to drive. His aspirations for colonies on Mars were already at least as appealing to much of the right as they ever were to the left.

Buying Twitter and wading into political debates isn't a depoliticization strategy, and if he'd wanted to pick a colour of his politics to optimize his business success (surprisingly unimportant when your product line is as far ahead of competition as SpaceX/Tesla have been) the correct choice would have been beige.

JumpCrisscross
1 replies
11h38m

Why doesn't a Tesla Model 3 carry the same sort of political baggage?

When was the last time you were in a red state? Driving an EV of any kind is a strong political statement.

By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan

Not how partisan affiliation works--think of someone who flip flops from one side to the other. They aren't seen as above the fray or non-partisan. Just unreliable (albeit, usually, useful).

skrebbel
0 replies
10h49m

Driving an EV of any kind is a strong political statement.

This surprises me (I believe you though!). I've read lots of articles and fun facts lately about how places like Texas go fastest at installing solar panels, because solar is now the cheapest source of energy and all. I'd blatantly assume that those new solar field owners would be charging their cars with their own electricity, also purely for money reasons and not climate/ideological ones.

JumpCrisscross
12 replies
12h17m

he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

Sure. I don't think he's a hypocrite. He has, however, hyper fixated on a topic that's in vogue in tech circles but totally irrelevant elsewhere.

Unlike in technology, where one can credibly fail upwards, doing that in politics comes at the cost of influence. And in this block order we're seeing, tangibly, the consequences of Elon Musk's deteriorating influence.

jack_pp
4 replies
11h33m

What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism?

JumpCrisscross
3 replies
11h12m

What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism?

Wokeism as it pertains to social media's discussion of the woke mind virus. Everyone has an opinion on it. But it's not of practical relevance to most people, certainly not most voters. Sort of like modern art.

jack_pp
2 replies
6h54m

Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
50m

Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US

Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
49m

Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US

Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot, especially by a particular core who gain money and influence from it. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans. It certainly doesn’t build one a national platform.

conradev
4 replies
11h9m

I do agree that he is hyper fixated on specific things like gender

but – I do think that there are elements of the “woke mind virus” that are okay with censorship. I don’t think that censorship has any place in a democracy, and I do think it is a problem we need to address.

The executive branch asked Twitter to ban a NY Post story on the grounds that it was misinformation when it wasn’t. It was “malinformation”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malinformation

They didn’t correct the record, and Ro Khanna emailed Twitter to cut that shit out: https://www.businessinsider.com/khanna-emailed-twitter-free-...

I really don’t like Elon, but I fear the previous Twitter censors more. Media is supposed to keep the government in check and not the other way around.

pavlov
2 replies
10h2m

Musk’s Twitter actively censors and promotes content based on the personal whims of the billionaire owner. Is that really better for democracy?

The Twitter/X experiment seems to have primarily succeeded in demonstrating that nobody has good solutions for this problem, and just repeating words like “misinformation” and “free speech” doesn’t get us any closer to a solution.

Props to Bluesky for trying something else, at least.

jokethrowaway
1 replies
8h38m

The opposite was true before Musk.

Some friends have an ancap libertarian and they were targeted before.

Woke content is not censored and you can find it on X, it's just that most left-wing people left for alternatives.

I went to bluesky briefly and I was inundated by transgender explicit content. I didn't open it again.

pavlov
0 replies
7h52m

Musk censors mentions of his own daughter on X — the same person who he claimed was dead on a recent interview, but who is very much alive and posting on Threads.

That kind of monarch-like behavior didn’t exist on Twitter before Musk. Their protocols for hiding and removing content may have been very flawed, but at least there was a process.

jasonlotito
0 replies
9h50m

“ I do think that there are elements of the “woke mind virus” that are okay with censorship”

Then let’s not focus on some made up boogeyman and ignore the fact that in 2020, the executive at the time was happily reaching out to Twitter and other platforms asking them to remove posts. The guy Musk is supporting was happily asking Twitter to remove posts.

But let’s be clear, they were asking Twitter to enforce its rules. And you can argue that the government asking like that is illegal, but I’ve yet to see a guilty verdict in court so, until that happens, Twitter enforcing its rules isn’t censorship. No one has been denied their first amendment rights.

More importantly, by Musks own yardstick, Twitter is no longer the bastion of Free Speech it was when he took control. So regardless of what you think, Twitter is worse off now.

jokethrowaway
1 replies
8h41m

The reason I don't move to the USA is because of woke people, scary numbers of mental health and crime.

The reason I moved country is because woke politics is making life worse. Crime is through the roof, kids can't go out in the cities by themselves because it's too dangerous. They started doing mandatory "gender identity" education in school, teaching crap to my kids.

I'm still in Europe and observing a progressive decline so I'm ready to move to Asia, the Caribbean, South America (Argentina maybe?) or maybe switch to the enemy and go to Russia or China, depending on how the situation evolves.

Dictatorship for dictatorship, I just want a low tax, safe place and governments to bother me as little as possible.

johnisgood
0 replies
6h14m

Some countries in Eastern Europe actively opposes gender stuff (it is banned in education). I do not know why "gender" is being asked in the first place, it should be "sex", and that is biological. Why do we ask for gender on websites, for example? What is the purpose of it, really?

FranzFerdiNaN
1 replies
11h23m

He believes the woke mind virus is a threat because he has a trans kid.

wkat4242
0 replies
11h0m

Yeah so much for supporting your children in their chosen life path :'(

Imagine having to completely break contact with your own father because he hates who you are so much :'(

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61880709

lossolo
0 replies
5h17m

I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

Musk blames 'wokeness' for his daughter rejecting him after he didn't accept who she was. His entire conflict with the left and the 'woke' is centered around this one issue. He can't accept that he was rejected because of what he has done, so he needs someone else to blame and fight with. He bought X as his propaganda tool, he doesn't care about the consequences of his actions on society—he only wants to win.

Musk is primarily driven by a savior complex

I don't think that's correct, it seems more likely that he was always driven by an inferiority complex.

kelnos
0 replies
9h38m

I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

The issue is that many people who feel this way (seemingly Musk included) swing to the other extreme and embrace policy positions that only serve to further support and entrench systemic racism.

I'm not always comfortable with the methods and rhetoric of some social justice advocates, but I'm not going to present that as evidence that the movement they support is dangerous and we should strive for social injustice instead.

janalsncm
0 replies
7h47m

he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

If “woke” involves an understanding that media is mostly filtered through large corporations and crafts narratives used to serve the interests of the ruling class, I’m not surprised a billionaire owner of a media company would consider that a problem.

Rather than identifying actual problems people are facing, media wastes our time with irrelevant distractions. Don’t worry about the opioid epidemic. Don’t worry about the fact that kids increasingly can’t even read after graduating high school. Don’t worry about corporate consolidation and monopolies. You should be worrying about “wokeism”.

torginus
6 replies
7h42m

I really effing hate the idea that competition is created not because people with entrepreneurial spirit think they can do what SpaceX does cheaper and better, but because the guy running the show is politically undesirable and untrustworthy.

XorNot
5 replies
6h40m

But that's not the issue: the issue is that Musk alienated almost the entire core demographic who wanted to buy Tesla's, wanted to support electric cars and were more or less completely primed to freely promote the entire brand.

He is a man who owns an electric car company but has been pushing climate change denialism as his political position and supporting politicians who do.

There's competition because Tesla is not the dominant prime mover it's valuation implies it should be, and people have sensed - correctly - a market opening. No one I know recommends "buy a Tesla" anymore for your first electric car - they say buy a Hydundai Ioniq or wait for a Chinese brand to get cheaper.

People are actively embarrassed to drive Teslas, which in turn means there's a growing market for "anything but a Tesla...". And because of that all of the actual faults of a Tesla are paid that much more scrutiny.

torginus
0 replies
5h46m

Tbh, not sure what percentage of Tesla buyers are ideologically motivated, but having tried a couple electric cars, I still believe the Model 3 is the best EV outside the premium segment, period.

As for Musk, he's a weird one for sure. He made me realize that I don't know the politics of most CEOs (or even know who they are). Which is just as well, I don't want to ponder in the supermarket whether my bodywash is ideologically consistent with my shampoo.

someguydave
0 replies
4h42m

how many other products do you ideologically affiliate with?

jajko
0 replies
5h50m

Just a single man representing single family in Switzerland but you are right - I'll never buy anything from Tesla, couldn't care less if they are best or not (no they are not in 2024, novelty wore off some time ago with tons of competition, at least in Europe).

He showed his true colors, there is no correction possible, people just don't rewrite their core personality. Support for puttin' and overall war in Ukraine, support for dictators, very bad stance on many societal topics, treats his employees like slaves, proper piece of shit as a parent, utterly childish reactions of an immature boy rather than Man - we haven't seen the worst yet.

Brilliance in some aspects means nothing if its dragged down into mud by rest of personality. I know some still worship him for the positives and ignore or even appreciate the rest, I can't and won't.

darthrupert
0 replies
3h4m

I dislike Musk like many others, but I think Teslas are still the best EVs out there.

darthrupert
0 replies
3h3m

I dislike Musk like many others, but I think Teslas are still the best EVs out there and it's very possible that my next one is a Tesla too.

crossroadsguy
1 replies
11h7m

Musk stuck to what he's good at

Right. And that is?

excalibur
0 replies
10h58m

Occasional well-thought-out, ambitious, and positive talking points combined with a whole lot of keeping his mouth shut seemed to work pretty well for him.

input_sh
13 replies
12h29m

Who else is there to blame for Twitter refusing to designate a representative, leading to a ban?

I'm sure pre-Musk Twitter wouldn't have lost the entire market in the 7th most populous country.

extheat
6 replies
11h36m

There is much more story that you’re either uninformed about or willfully ignoring. The correct move was to remove people from harms way for decisions they have no control over, hence their staff exit from the country.

ben_w
4 replies
9h34m

The threats were themselves due to failing to follow a court order.

I'm not qualified to tell if the judge giving them is a partisan hack or not, just like I can't make that distinction with the judges that Musk appears to shop for in the US with what others describe as SLAPP lawsuits.

But obeying a judge isn't optional in either case.

luckylion
3 replies
7h35m

The threats were themselves due to failing to follow a court order.

To the individual representatives of a company? That's very rare, and not common like you make it sound.

"The company you're representing in this legal process hasn't complied with my orders so I will have you personally arrested".

ben_w
2 replies
5h23m

There are various accounts on Twitter which were being investigated etc. for criminal misconduct, Twitter was given a court order to block those accounts. I have no idea if that order was itself justified (IANAL and I don't speak Brazilian) but the orders were given by someone with authority to give them.

Twitter refused the order, which means that Twitter is interfering with the legal process in Brazil. This sounds like "contempt of court" to me, which is a thing which results in a judge sending people to prison — no idea what it is in Brazil, but IIRC the maximum penalty in my country of birth is 2 years' imprisonment.

Brazil's legal system requires companies like Twitter to have an office in the country in order to receive such orders, which I think means it's literally her job to make those orders happen. Regardless, by closing the office Twitter was directly violating Brazilian law.

As companies cannot themselves be imprisoned, I do not see what alternative there would be than directing obligations onto a specific human. Buck has to stop somewhere, and while I know a lot of people who would celebrate if this judge decided that the correct somewhere was "international arrest warrant/request extradition of Elon Musk personally", I suspect this judge would have to go through a few more checkboxes before that doesn't get "major diplomatic incident" written all over it.

(Perhaps less of an incident if it's concurrent with the EU saying "We're issuing Twitter with a 6% fine on their global annual turnover for non-compliance with the Digital Services Act", which seems to be another battle Musk is Leeroy-Jenkins-ing himself into).

luckylion
1 replies
1h15m

I can't think of any country I'd consider having a strong rule of law that would start arresting employees for the actions of their companies that they themselves have no say in.

Effectively, the judge makes it impossible for X to defend itself in court because he'll just have anyone arrested who tries. That's not something you'll find in the developed world these days.

ben_w
0 replies
9m

Effectively, the judge makes it impossible for X to defend itself in court because he'll just have anyone arrested who tries.

No, on two counts.

First, Twitter is free to seek out a lawyer to represent them in court. Most people hire lawyers for contract work rather than as a permanent employee, so this remains possible even with no assets within Brazil.

Second, there was nothing to be defended until they refused to comply with the lawfully given order within the required deadline.

That they chose to fire their staff member and close the office in order to prevent compliance with the lawfully given order, was an actual offence in its own right. To my limited understanding, it is also an offence in its own right to refuse a lawfully given court order. But in both cases, Twitter was not being punished until they actually broke the law.

Courts in the UK and the USA may issue an injunction, both to prohibit and/or to compel an action:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injunction (note in particular that interim injunctions may be given prior to a ruling on the case itself)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injunctions_in_English_law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interim_order

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quia_timet

And, pertinently to Starlink: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_freezing

Compare and contrast Twitter in Brazil with Lavabit in the USA: Lavabit was ordered to provide certain information in secret (with an injunction to not talk about it); they protested, they first provided that information in an obtuse form that was considered contempt, they provided it in a form which was acceptable, then they closed their business in response and took further legal action in response to what they — and, to be clear, I — consider to have been a manner incompatible with the public view of American Democracy:

"""Levison said that he could be arrested for closing the site instead of releasing the information, and it was reported that the federal prosecutor's office had sent Levison's lawyer an email to that effect."""

and

"""Levison wrote that after being contacted by the FBI, he was subpoenaed to appear in federal court, and was forced to appear without legal representation because it was served on such short notice; in addition, as a third party, he had no right to representation, and was not allowed to ask anyone who was not an attorney to help find him one. He also wrote that in addition to being denied a hearing about the warrant to obtain Lavabit's user information, he was held in contempt of court. The appellate court denied his appeal due to no objection, however, he wrote that because there had been no hearing, no objection could have been raised. His contempt of court charge was also upheld on the ground that it was not disputed; similarly, he was unable to dispute the charge because there had been no hearing to do it in."""

close04
0 replies
9h39m

Musk and his people officially don’t have any control over political decisions taken in any country, be it Brazil, Germany, or even home in the US. And they shouldn’t but by virtue of a ton of money thrown towards politicians, and general US global influence, many times this happens.

So your explanation should be rewritten as “remove people from the way of legal consequences from breaking local laws they/Musk can’t control (buy) in their favor”.

It sounds like the same thing but it’s the difference between fleeing persecution and fleeing prosecution.

mikrotikker
5 replies
9h46m

Better to stand strong in the principles of the 1st amendment than bend the knee to a foreign government. Free speech is the milk of the gods, the US constitution is something to be coveted...

pjc50
1 replies
8h55m

From the Brazilian position, it's better for them not to bend to a foreign non-government organization which has been assisting people trying to overthrow the Brazilian Constitution.

But HN seems to think that Brazilians are NPCs without politics or constitution of their own.

mikrotikker
0 replies
5h36m

Yes well that is their choice if they want to be authoritarians and inhibit the free speech of their citizens. Keep Twitter banned.

moefh
1 replies
9h23m

It's hard to believe that's what's happening, since Musk has previously agreed to censor posts for a foreign government[1], writing at the time:

    The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety
    or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?” 
One difference in that case is that Musk had close business ties to that government, so read in that whatever you want.

[1] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors...

johnisgood
0 replies
6h5m

Limiting access due to technical reasons is not censorship. That said, I have no clue that this is what is actually happening.

the_why_of_y
0 replies
7h11m

Twitter routinely complies with censorship demands by foreign governments, especially right-wing authoritarian ones.

https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-or...

Since Musk took ownership, the company has received 971 government demands, and fully complied with 808 of them. Before Musk, Twitter's full compliance rate hovered around 50%; since the takeover, it is over 80%.

kstenerud
36 replies
10h1m

Looking at the responses, I can see that people are still viewing this through the limited lens of left vs right.

This is of course a thing in that nobody can hide their colors anymore, but I'm specifically talking about the rich now feeling empowered enough that they even have the hubris to challenge governments of the world for their own benefit, and in some cases even build their own empires to escape the limitations of governments by forming their own rich-people-only worlds.

For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/magazine/prospera-hondura...

So long as you continue fighting left vs right, you're fighting the wrong enemy.

mikrotikker
19 replies
9h49m

Free speech is all that matters. Musk is not perfect by any means here but he is better than the rest. He is exporting the 1st amendment to us nations who don't get to experience such freedoms. Which is what Twitter should have been doing, instead of kowtowing to the likes of the German and Saudi govts among others...

kstenerud
8 replies
8h50m

Free speech is a dog whistle. We can't have actual "free speech" in the pure sense of the term (just like we can't have pure democracy) because it would erode public confidence and destroy our democratic nations in the process.

And there are outside actors currently working hard to ensure that this happens, because they want a return to the old imperial world order (where powerful nations capture territory and expand, and weaker nations die at their hands and are colonized).

klrmvn
3 replies
8h32m

It is sad that free speech became a dog whistle. Post WW2 up to at least 2000 free speech was a strong position of the left, Noam Chomsky being one of the most prominent examples.

Musk isn't hard right. There is a lot of overlap positions between him and Bill Clinton (the original one from the 1990s, I do not know what he says now), except that Musk is anti-war and obviously talks like he was on Usenet.

I can't understand that software engineers, who vigorously defended free speech and also the somewhat trollish communication style up to at least 2010, came to be assimilated and reprogrammed by their employers.

Even Zuckerberg now backpedals and says that Covid censorship and suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story was a mistake.

kstenerud
1 replies
8h19m

Even Zuckerberg now backpedals and says that Covid censorship and suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story was a mistake.

It's easy to say with the benefit of hindsight what was a mistake and what was not. Some things need to be censored - that's how it's always been. The question, of course, is WHAT needs to be censored, HOW MUCH it needs to be censored, HOW it should be censored, and WHO decides.

In the old days, it was easy: If it wasn't on prime time (TV, major newspapers, syndicated radio), it didn't exist. And this cabal served us well, providing a small number of voices to tell people who they were and what to believe.

Now with a potentially unlimited number of voices going up and down in popularity with unprecedented speed and across nations, we're headed into unknown territory, so there are going to be a lot of mistakes, and nobody can know for sure if our nations can even survive it.

bluescrn
0 replies
6h11m

Some things need to be censored - that's how it's always been.

No. There are very few things that 'need to be censored' by the government (or corporations with almost government-level power), and it's hard to think of any beyond CSAM or legitimate threats to national security.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things that children should be protected from. But we're failing miserably at that. They're watching extreme porn and gore while the censors are focusing on silencing adults with the wrong political views.

okr
0 replies
6h56m

Because they are old and have families now. Metoo and toxic behaviours did the rest. And, it is just not that important.

For me, Musk/Trump is indeed fresh trollish air in all this seriousness and iam astounded, that no one else enjoys it. But i also have the feeling, it is a last breath before police state takes over. Because a state can not allow its citizen to go rogue.

FollowingTheDao
1 replies
8h33m

Free speech is a dog whistle. We can't have actual "free speech" in the pure sense of the term

If you are in the U.S I am sorry you have this take on free speech, because it is distorted.

Free speech is defined by law and the law is clear. Freedom of speech means the free and public expression of opinions without censorship, interference and restraint by the government.

bigstrat2003
0 replies
3h25m

That is untrue and a very frustrating error (because it's so common). Freedom of speech is an ideal that one should be able to speak their mind without retaliation. The First Amendment is the law which guarantees freedom of speech with respect to the government. The two are not the same, and private actors can (and often do) violate freedom of speech.

klrmvn
0 replies
8h23m

The Soviet Union supported anti war, peace protests and free speech in leftist groups, but most of it was organic.

Russia purportedly supports free speech right wing groups, though I think the problem is vastly overstated in order to discredit them. Most of this is organic,too.

Whatever is the case, left or right, we cannot let our own beliefs be dictated by whatever Russia supports or co-opts at any given time. Similarly, vegetarians should not abolish their beliefs just because a notorious 20th century dictator was also a vegetarian.

idunnoman1222
0 replies
4h21m

Ah yes, free speech: the final death knoll of western democracy.

kristiandupont
2 replies
9h15m

But Musk doesn't care about free speech, he is actively and eagerly suppressing it as well, just for the other team.

namaria
0 replies
5h27m

That man will say anything, I don't know why anyone would pay attention to it.

itsoktocry
0 replies
4h57m

Yes, no one is truly "unbiased" or without opinions. This is not new.

But giving the "other team" a voice (my team, in some ways) is valuable, and we aren't going to give it up easily.

And please, don't point to the fact that there are right-wing loons on Twitter, because there are crazies from all sides all over the internet.

dspillett
2 replies
7h44m

> Musk is not perfect by any means

Musk is not perfect by any means wrt free speech.

His version of being a free speech absolutist is that people who agree with him should absolutely have the right to free speech.

bluescrn
1 replies
6h24m

His version of being a free speech absolutist is that people who agree with him should absolutely have the right to free speech.

So he's merely an equal and opposite reaction to what the other tribe have been doing for ages?

He didn't fundamentally change Twitter. He bought a powerful propaganda tool/weapon and aimed it in the opposite direction.

(I suppose he's also using it as his own personal megaphone, whereas the previous owners would merely ensure that chosen voices were amplified/suppressed rather than using their own voices directly)

Not sure how we start to approach some sort of disarmament process when it comes to these propaganda weapons, though.

dspillett
0 replies
2h45m

> So he's merely an equal and opposite reaction

> He bought a powerful propaganda tool/weapon and aimed it in the opposite direction.

I'd say not. I don't think twitter itself wasn't aimed directly in any direction before Musk, other than “away from where firing may cause twitter problems”. They operated from a position of cowardice rather than political bias.

Sometimes this was towards the right because there was a fairly centrist or centre-left¹ bias online, but it often very much wasn't. For a clear case of them not aiming at the right, look at them leaving Trump and many like him alone at a time when they were flagrantly going against twitter policies, but slapping them for that would have caused too much grief back at them. It may be a complete coincidence², but Musk first started getting really serious about taking over around the time twitter started cracking down on that group (having joked about it prior to that IIRC, though it did take over a full year for his first actual takeover bid to happen).

----

[1] These definitions are difficult. Often what America seems to see as centre-left or even actually moderate left, is things that many over this side of the big pond would see as more centrist.

[2] Though I strongly suspect not.

latexr
1 replies
7h4m

Twitter has demonstrably kowtowed more to authoritarian governments under Musk.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/elon-musk-censors-twitter-in...

And he regularly bans journalists who don’t lick his boots.

https://newrepublic.com/post/177936/twitter-suspends-account...

Stop listening to what he says and pay attention to what he does. You’re being swindled.

He is exporting the 1st amendment to us nations who don't get to experience such freedoms.

This is particularly absurd. “The first amendment” isn’t a paragon of freedom unique to the US. And it only applies to government censorship. You can’t “export it” to other countries by means of a social network.

itsoktocry
0 replies
5h5m

Stop listening to what he says and pay attention to what he does. You’re being swindled.

I am paying attention to what he does. I use Twitter for hours every day.

The point is less about "free speech", because of course you're right, this is Musk's version of free speech.

But the real issue to the left is that he's allowing speech that, in recent history, has been considered "dissenting" or restricted. The fact that in the past week we have had Zuck come out and say Facebook was pressured to censor COVID19 materials and that we have mainstream politicians and bureaucrats calling to THROW MUSK IN JAIL is insane. Utterly insane.

The people behind this are getting found out, and there will be political consequences.

rixed
0 replies
8h52m

Not sure X posture against censure is to be taken seriously though. From Al Jazeera:

In India, he agreed with an order imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take down accounts and posts related to a farmers’ protest that swept through the country in February, their demands including guaranteed prices for their produce and debt waivers.

(https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/31/brazil-moves-to-blo...)

notahacker
0 replies
8h18m

According to its own statistics, Musk's Twitter complied with 83% of government takedown requests compared with 50% in the year before it was taken over, and he's found plenty of novel grounds for kicking people off Twitter for things which annoy him.

Obviously for people whose idea of freedom of speech begins and ends at actively promoting vice signalling in regimes which have some degree of speech protection whilst doing exactly what an autocrat like Erdogan asks because "you can't go beyond the laws of a country", Musk represents an improvement, but that doesn't have anything to do with promoting First Amendment ideology overseas.

AnonymousPlanet
11 replies
8h35m

As an outsider, I can't help but feel that the American election system that boils everything down to just two parties imposes a limited binary lens onto at least the American view of the world.

kstenerud
3 replies
8h27m

It happens in multiparty systems as well. All it takes is a significant portion of the population feeling like their voices are not heard, and then one of the parties taking up their banner as one part of the overall campaign (which doesn't even have to be in their new constituents' interests).

This is happening all over Europe as we speak. And even though it happens to be extreme-right atm, it doesn't have to be. We've seen extreme-left revivals in the past as well.

tm-guimaraes
2 replies
8h5m

And Europe is actually resisting better than US due to election system. Here in best case scenario they are number 2, and took them a long time to get there after Trump

In the US, a populist just needs to win a primary, ie 50% of 50% of the American votes, and he is immediately at least nr2 in the run, and they get the support of one of the major parties.

Saying that populists / extremists also exist in Europe is just a bad comparison.

akie
1 replies
5h59m

The extreme right won the Dutch elections though - and they’re not the only country - so your argument that “best case (...) number 2” isn’t true. They can and do win elections.

acdha
0 replies
5h14m

What did winning mean, though? Is it Republican-style minority rule where they can work the system push through policies which a majority of Americans oppose, or a coalition government where half of his coalition is pledged to rein in his more extreme positions?

throwaway2037
2 replies
8h2m

Are French Presidential elections so different? And the UK only has two major parties, so the outcome will be similar.

XorNot
0 replies
6h48m

The UK system has a much less powerful Executive though.

To be clear: FPTP is terrible, but the reason the UK system isn't as broken as the US one is because the correct functioning of the Legislature is much more vital to the overall system - i.e. 3 viable parties can exist because they're fighting over hundreds of seats, and then it's by the Legislature that the Prime Minister is chosen - rather then by direct vote.

NeoTar
0 replies
6h59m

The French system, with its two rounds system has a built-in protection against extremism and to encourage compromise.

The UK is also a FPTP system, but has strong parties outside of the two main, for instance in the last general election over 42% of people voted for a party other than Labour or the Conservatives.

[admittedly that’s an outlier, but looking over the last few elections at least around 20% went to parties outside of the big two]

chipdart
1 replies
8h18m

As an outsider, I can't help but feel that the American election system that boils everything down to just two parties imposes a limited binary lens onto at least the American view of the world.

I don't think that the American election system holds any relevance to the problem.

The problem is fueling divisiveness to manipulate people with a "us vs them" mentality.

How else can you force working class people to vote against their best interests, such as taxing the rich fairly, ensuring access to affordable health care, uphold basic workers rights, without resorting to blatant fearmongering and moral outrage with bullshit like "they want post-birth abortions, impose sexual abuse in schools, import scary criminal gangs from distant foreign lands, etc"?

Not to mention the industrial level of propaganda dumped by foreign actors to destabilize democratic nations.

thechao
0 replies
4h1m

My wife is a nationally recognized expert in elections in the US. The combination of FPTP and politically controlled district geometry (gerrymandering) explicitly creates a brittle system that engenders extremism. It's well understood to be both the cause and a reinforcement mechanism. The mechanism we have now was left in place in the early 19th c. explicitly to allow a small minority to be able to control their individual states. The main change since then has been cross-state unification of the party system. To give an example: here, in Texas, the most volatile Federal district was won by a representative who received only 10% of the votes in his district. Some districts were won by reps with as few as 1% of the total votes (that's total turnout). (This is due to the primary mechanism and gerrymandering.) If you can win by harnessing just 10% of the electorate, you're shopping around for the ironclad voters, and they tend to have weird views (left or right).

jajko
0 replies
6h3m

No country that I know of adopted US election system. Its beyond obscure, unfair and set to be rigged for anybody looking from outside, with no normal way out. Its just not resilient enough to everchanging society. I know the historical reasons, but only fools get stuck in the past ways at all costs 'because, you know, in the past, XYZ so we are where we are so suck it up' when its clearly not beneficial to general population.

One reasons out of ocean of reasons - number of actual votes for X or Y is irrelevant, its all about blocks based on some old history nobody should care about much anymore that decide winner. Freedom of choice is very limited, strong populists like trump have much bigger and long lasting effect than in more multipolar elections.

But for sure its a spectacle for masses for a good year and polarizes society for whatever bad reasons there are, that should be concerned about more serious topics than this.

bravetraveler
0 replies
6h9m

Intentional false dichotomy serves many purposes, yes

TacticalCoder
1 replies
5h49m

You got to be kidding me... Prospera / Honduras is nothing. It doesn't register. Libertarians, sadly I'd add, shall never ever have an ounce of success: all the powers that be in this world are out there to crush liberties, everywhere, worldwide.

Meanwhile The New York Times is titling an article: "The constitution is scared, but is it dangerous?"

There's nothing more belonging to the rich than the mainstream media, including the NYT. They were the people selling you the FTX scam and explaining you SBF was the second coming of Christ.

Now that Harris wants to "force congress to ban guns in her 100 days, or take executive orders if congress doesn't do it", of course that the NYT is publishing about the constitution being potentially dangerous.

And the problem is... Prospera in Honduras?

As long as you keep reading The NYT, you're fighting the wrong enemy.

sigseg1v
0 replies
3h29m

I'm not an American but

congress to ban guns

This sounds desperately needed and like an exceptionally great idea to most people that don't live inside the US bubble.

Maybe broaden your horizons a bit?

strken
0 replies
7h53m

I quite like charter cities, at least in theory, and I'm a little annoyed that everyone sees them as an attempt at world domination. They could let us A/B test legal frameworks, and I think that's neat.

Hopefully someone who isn't a hard libertarian bankrolls one soon so they don't get pigeonholed as places for exactly one ideology.

dspillett
0 replies
7h54m

> So long as you continue fighting left vs right, you're fighting the wrong enemy.

The problem is that there seems to be a large overlap between that enemy⁰ and certain arguments on the right side of left/right political debates, so it is very difficult to separate the two even on those matters where that overlap isn't actually present.

The matter is made worse because right-leaning political groups are less ideologically opposed to being influenced by that enemy's main power: being able to buy stuff/opinions/people.

----

[0] I assume you are meaning the arsehole rich¹ here

[1] There are some nice hyper-rich out there, but they aren't as vocal as the others so we don't hear much from/about them – much like the more moderate people with right-leaning views, who aren't heard over the yelling of others.

wkat4242
7 replies
11h6m

To be honest with the current polarisation levels in politics it's no longer possible to be neutral. The conservative side is now even strongarming companies into abandoning their diversity programs! This is just really not ok, I'm part of the LGBTIQ+ support network in our company and this kind of thing is really making waves. People are worried, even though we're a Europe based company where this is not a contested topic (though we do have many offices in the US). See what happened to Ford, Jack Daniels, Harley Davidson, and many others. Decades of progress are being thrown out the window.

Many US companies are now feeling forced to choose a side. At least I now know which to boycott..

lolinder
2 replies
5h49m

Hi! I'm neutral.

DEI was a political statement—one that you agreed with and felt was necessary. Abandoning DEI is also a political statement—one that you disagree with and think is not okay.

You're welcome to disagree with the people who disagree with DEI, but I'd hesitate to claim that these companies were "strongarmed" into it—the programs always existed as a political tool for the company to curry favor, not as something that was added for its intrinsic practical or moral value. The political climate has changed, which means they no longer serve their true purpose.

The important takeaway from this reversal is that the progressive theory of change that's been leaned on for the past few decades was a bad one. We thought that a lot of progress had been made, but it turns out it was all surface level and easy to undo when the pressure to keep up appearances went away or reversed. "We need to do this because it will look bad if we don't" is a very fickle tool for motivating real change.

wkat4242
1 replies
56m

Well companies are by their very nature immoral. They don't care about any kind of morals, just making money. You even have to strongarm them into following the law (see Boeing, Volkswagen etc).

lolinder
0 replies
39m

Yes. Which is why lasting change will never come from persuading the leadership of companies that your personal set of morals need to be followed if they want to be successful—they'll follow you for as long as you are powerful and bail as soon as you aren't.

You have to change hearts and minds within the broader population in order to bring lasting power towards change, but that's something that the modern crop of progressives entirely gave up on 10+ years ago in favor of racing to the finish line and declaring victory prematurely.

(Cue comments that the right can't be reasoned with so there's no point in trying.)

mike_hearn
1 replies
7h2m

It's absolutely contested in Europe. "Why is the NHS spending so much money on diversity officials when they don't have enough doctors" is a long standing complaint by many people and politicians in the UK, for example.

wkat4242
0 replies
6h59m

True there's some exceptions. The UK has indeed fallen to American-style polarisation. As have the Netherlands where an extreme-right regime now reigns.

But most of Europe is still sane, luckily.

Ps rather than blaming transsexualism it might be smarter to blame the Tories who have been skimming (and selling off to their own companies) the NHS until there was nothing left.

itsoktocry
1 replies
4h42m

The conservative side is now even strongarming companies into abandoning their diversity programs! This is just really not ok, I'm part of the LGBTIQ+ support network in our company and this kind of thing is really making waves.

Sorry pal, you're going to have to make it on merits, not your gender or skin color.

See what happened to Ford, Jack Daniels, Harley Davidson, and many others. Decades of progress are being thrown out the window.

Racial quotas in the workplace is not progress.

At least I now know which to boycott..

Oh, so your boycotts are fine? Classic leftist hypocrisy.

wkat4242
0 replies
1h15m

Sorry pal, you're going to have to make it on merits, not your gender or skin color.

I'm not advocating for positive discrimination. Just no discrimination at all.

It's very important to have the proper procedures in place for when that does happen. That was part of the diversity programs. Programs against bullying, education for managers on gender identity and how to deal with the difficulties around them, how to pick up on bullying etc. It's this kind of thing that I do myself (not as a job but as a voluntary side assignment in my job). It's amazing what kind of sexism and racism you hear when you go on a company trip and have a few drinks with high-level managers. So clearly this work is still highly needed.

Don't forget these programs were started because things were going the wrong way, people who were different than the standard cishetero white male had less chance to a job and were making less money when they did get one. This is of course not acceptable.

I don't think quotas are the answer. But rather fines when a company goes too far askew. "We only hire white cristians here" just cannot be acceptable.

Racial quotas in the workplace is not progress.

That was only one small part of the diversity programs, and not one I necessarily agree with.

Oh, so your boycotts are fine? Classic leftist hypocrisy.

I never said boycotts are wrong anyway. If right wingers want to boycott companies like Apple, go ahead.

roenxi
4 replies
12h54m

We've been living in a fantasy land of "no political affiliation" in the tech world for decades

Which "we" are you speaking for? That doesn't sound like the tech world, we've had a lot of explicitly political tech movements over the years. Off the top of my head some of the more successful and major ones were:

- Cryptography.

- Free Software.

- Cryptocurrency.

The Silicon Valley based companies have been politically active since at least 2016, there have been a couple of political exoduses by various groups to alternative platforms. The non-Silicon-Valley companies have been worse and generally suspect to the point where nobody expected political apathy (is anyone going to claim that Chinese social media are not politically subordinate to the state?).

diffeomorphism
2 replies
12h42m

"Politically affiliated" is something very different than "political".

roenxi
1 replies
12h34m

If you figure out what that difference is, let me know. The tech scene has been decidedly liberal (old school liberal, nowadays people maybe call that libertarian) and as political as it can be since the start. There has been a trend where other political cultures are getting involved too since ... probably the Obama campaign was when politicians really started noticing that spreading messages through the internet was more effective than going through the corporate news. But that is just a change of affiliations (maybe more accurately a broadening), tech has always been affiliated with someone.

ben_w
0 replies
2h19m

"Political" is anything related to inter-personal power in society, and can be anything from maintaining a homeowner's association bylaws to international spy-craft and assassinations, and is so broad as to be unavoidable in human behaviour.

"Political affiliation" is much narrower and comes with a specific named politician or political party — even if they're not going to get in, such as Lord Buckethead or the Green Party of America.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
11h59m

Which "we" are you speaking for? That doesn't sound like the tech world...Silicon Valley based companies have been politically active since at least 2016

That was the tipping point. Before Trump, it was common to hear techies in the Bay Area proudly proclaim that they didn't concern themselves with politics. (Reminds me of the way aristocratic Europeans talk about commerce.)

Tech always had views on policy. But it wasn't outwardly opinionated on politics, certainly not partisan politics, in the overt (and influential) way that it is today.

motbus3
0 replies
3h22m

I am talking about sonic the movie obviously.

I don't think dr Eggman should be able to attack in that way.

There is no proof but there was a threat and retaliation which is a terrible precedent.

It is like Eggman attacking Sonic for something that Shadow did.

kcmastrpc
0 replies
5h30m

As opposed to its previous owners? Don't let those shades get too dark, friend.

hereme888
0 replies
12h58m

yup, just read the comment.

dspillett
0 replies
8h5m

> And it's not just Musk.

You are definitely correct there. Twitter was a shit-show in this regard long before Musk came along and made it worse. They did far too little to enforce their own policies (let alone common decency) on things like bullying and hate content for far too long, for fear of losing users and therefore advertising money or being punished because some of those openly breaking those rules were in high power at the time, and this led to an “open season” feeling for all sides.

[for the avoidance of doubt: I've never had a twitter account, after the initial novelty stage it has always been far too full of the sort of people that think twitter is a good idea]

Dalewyn
0 replies
12h54m

once again

When has the rich not been more or less 1:1 with The Powers That Be(tm)?

The form changes with the sands of time, but the essence is always the same.

delichon
16 replies
18h30m

Does Bluesky intend to be responsive to the kind of court orders that X rejected?

pfraze
6 replies
18h6m

Speaking entirely personally as I don't handle those questions at bsky. I couldn't even begin to comment without seeing knowing what the court orders were and what the cases are. Every social company operating internationally runs into this issue, and it's daunting to say the least. So, again, this is not something I decide.

What I can say is that the protocol is a neutral global layer for data, which can then enable multiple applications with their own moderation policies and decisions. There's always going to be moderation decisions we make that people will disagree with. The point is that something can be done about that disagreement - you can have other applications on the same network that makes their own decisions. I think one of the best things that could happen is that Brazilian developers fork the Bluesky app and build locally-owned social platforms on the atmosphere.

Kye
2 replies
18h1m

Context: atmosphere is like "Fediverse" but for the AT protocol and also way more schway

chrisweekly
1 replies
15h33m

I had to check, and urbandictionary confirms, "schway" is

"A word to use when something is astonishingly cool, fashionable, or popular."
Kye
0 replies
12h59m

I got it from Batman Beyond.

antimemetics
0 replies
6h2m

Rather someone on Twitter shared some text - these aren’t the original court orders - they are at best a paraphrase by someone with a certain agenda.

throwaway48476
0 replies
16h46m

Brazilian developers fork the Bluesky app and build locally-owned social platforms on the atmosphere.

This makes it easy to send thugs to their house and 'encourage' them to comply with any political demand. Jurisdictional arbitrage, particularly sites hosted in America following the first amendment is the only thing keeping anti authoritarian speech alive in authoritarian regimes.

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/audio-pakistan-global-critics

mwilcox
3 replies
18h8m

Clearly given he is excited to receive the traffic

meiraleal
1 replies
18h4m

Interestingly, the cohort moving to Bluesky isn't the same as those who were having trouble with the law.

siproprio
0 replies
16h46m

Yes. Brazilians were censored and moved to bluesky. Elon musk has problems with the law! Absolutely no overlap whatsoever. Also very interesting in its own way.

jrflowers
0 replies
17h45m

Can you elaborate on this? I’m not clear what you mean here.

crossroadsguy
3 replies
11h1m

Something tells me at the least bsky will not begin a name calling primary school attack with a supreme court justice of a sovereign nation while using abusive names for the president of that country all the while using childish fake AI generated graphics.

PS. Somehow all of this feels very natural when done by Musk. It kind of makes sense. It feels like “yes yes, he’d do this”.

rapsey
2 replies
10h54m

A supreme court judge clearly acting against the laws of their state, but somehow Musk is the bad guy.

bilvar
1 replies
10h31m

We arrived at the point that people are celebrating censorship and authoritarianism because of their irrational hatred of one guy.

Ygg2
0 replies
9h54m

That's how it always works. "You see the problem with not dealing with XYZ is that the government/judicial/legislative doesn't have enough power to tackle XYZ."

You grant them power they asked. They don't deal with it, but ask for more power. At some point they stop asking and label you as the problem.

mensetmanusman
0 replies
16h32m

No, it is a game of whack a mole.

louhike
1 replies
17h24m

That’s interesting. Why do you use event sourcing? Is having a full history important for a website/app like bluesky?

pfraze
0 replies
17h12m

Ahhh you know what, I should call it stream processing or something, because we don't store the data entirely as events. We store the data as a mutable K/V which emits an event stream of changes, which can then be ingested into different views. We chose not to store changes as events specifically because we don't want unbounded growth in the system. Initial syncs work by fetching the current state of the K/V store (the "data repo").

Bluesky is built on atprotocol (atproto.com) and can be thought of as an open distributed system. The event stream is for replicating throughout the various services.

geekodour
1 replies
16h53m

hi pfraze, can u tell us a bit more about the golang event stream? does it also trigger the computation of the views periodically?

more precisely wanted to understand how do you generate the event stream from sqlite

pfraze
0 replies
16h30m

In my previous description, I avoided talking about atproto details for clarity, but this is all part of that (atproto.com). The "kv stores" are what we call data repos[1] and they use sqlite for storage, but can produce individual event streams. Those streams flow into the golang event stream, aka the "relay". View computation happens continuously.

1. data repos are actually signed merkle trees, which gives at-rest authentication of the data as it gets shipped across organizational boundaries

johnisgood
0 replies
6h29m

Hmm, it is something I would use Elixir for.

johnchristopher
0 replies
9h59m

Thanks for the details !

I wonder about:

Hybrid on-prem & cloud.

I wonder about the factors/considerations that led to hosting a given data/services on-prem or outside. Were there purely technical considerations or were there also about "self host what can't get leaked" (think GDPR, privacy concerns, things like that) ?

Angostura
0 replies
7h43m

I'm just trying to work out why I'm seeing so many posts in Portguese when all my settings are set to English

dgfitz
84 replies
19h18m

Disclaimer: indifferent at best to musk, probably more dislike than anything else, but not with vitriol.

So I read that this is all because musk refused to appoint a Brazilian citizen as an X representative, as dictated by Brazilian law. I have not verified this part.

Musk refused because the last person to fill that role had all their bank accounts frozen by the judge.

The judge also cut off payments from Brazilian citizens to starlink, something about relating star link to x. so musk said “well then starlink is free for Brazilian citizens because I don’t want to cut people off from their internet connection.” Or something like that.

Edit: blackeyedblitzar child comment of this has better information.

blackeyeblitzar
76 replies
18h37m

Not exactly. X had a local representative who was threatened by this judge issuing illegal censorship orders. It’s not that they refused to appoint a representative but that they had to get rid of all their employees and legal representation in Brazil because the judge was going after them as individuals, making it impossible for X to challenge what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech.

The root of the issue is that Alexandre de Moraes, a single justice on the Supreme Court, has been issuing secret orders to censor content, ban accounts, and jail people over political speech. This is unconstitutional in Brazil per article 5 of the 1988 constitution, so X refused the orders. Note that the text of the Brazilian constitution explicitly says that the freedom of expression is guaranteed without censorship (it mentions “censorship”). If they were legal orders they would have complied, as they have in other countries.

Also the “Musk refused” part isn’t accurate. Ultimately these decisions are made by Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X.

riverrunn01
13 replies
15h59m

Nope Im Brazilian. And all of this started way before. These orders were not imbalanced -- the blocking of X accounts -- (Ok VPN now is). Musk after several court decisions decided to not comply, even after all involved received due process. It's not, in the slightest, censorship at all. What really happened was violation of ellection rules on daily basis, specially on X but many other social also were fined. META, Tik Tok also had to remove content by court decision and they did comply it. Alexandre de Moraes at election's time was the judge of our TSE -- a branch of supreme court‬ which deals specifically with the electoral process. Many of these accounts participated in January 8, including promoting violence against institutions, some calling for a coup d'état. The continuous disregard of Brazilian laws meant that Musk, which in addition do not paid the fines, also removed his legal representatives from the country, which is not permitted by our legislation.

open4glabs
5 replies
15h0m

Nope, I'm Brazilian and this is "censorship at all"!

bobbruno
3 replies
8h26m

Also brazilian here. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of illegal speech. One is allowed to go public and speak their minds, but if their speech is illegal (hate speech, conspiracy to overthrow the government, political campaigning during embargo periods), there will be consequences for those, and that does not constitute censorship.

Initially, consequences were not that bad (take down of some illegal posts), then they went to removal of recurring offender profiles.X ignored those Supreme Court Justice orders - their only legal course of action being to comply and file an appeal to the Supreme Court as a whole. That led to further escalation against their legal representation in Brazil and their executives (which is according to Brazilian law), which led to Musk shutting down the local representation rather than following the local law. Which put X in a non-compliance state and led to the order for its blocking.

If you understand the initial order to take down posts of defamation and illegal speech as censorship, you comply and appeal. Ignoring a court order is not a legal option.

FollowingTheDao
1 replies
8h6m

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of illegal speech.

In Brazil you can go to jail for a slur against a queer person. That is not the case in the U.S.

The question is not about Freedom of Speech, it is about changing the laws on what is protected and illegal speech. I do not like Musk as a person, but what he is doing is an act of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is the active, and professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government.

I am wary of the tightening fence around what is protected speech. I am a historian, and the censors never end up being the good guys.

the_why_of_y
0 replies
6h45m

Civil disobedience means breaking a law in order to argue in court that the law is bad, thereby deliberately putting yourself at risk of serious consequences. This is not civil disobedience, because Elon Musk is not in Brazil, nor a citizen of Brazil, and is not personally at any risk.

VancouverMan
0 replies
4h22m

"Freedom of speech" can't coexist with "illegal speech".

The moment that something is deemed "illegal" to express, there inherently is no more free expression present.

enaaem
0 replies
2h26m

What people don't get is that mild "censorship" is desirable even under common Libertarian ideologies.

The general rule is that you have the freedom to do and say whatever you want as long as you don't harm others.

Unrestricted free speech simply does not exist and any free society will have mild censorship, otherwise a lot of terrorists, criminals and fraudsters could defend themselves under free speech.

welshwelsh
3 replies
13h48m

A court ordering for social media accounts to be blocked is censorship, no question about that.

If there are "election rules" that regulate what can be posted online, that's censorship. Even if people are inciting violence or formenting revolution, banning them is censorship.

Most governments participate in censorship, and most people are OK with some level of censorship. But Brazil's constitution guarantees freedom of speech without censorship, so their courts have no business issuing orders to censor social media.

makeitdouble
0 replies
13h31m

Brazil's constitution guarantees freedom of speech without censorship

That can't work in reality though. So at best it can only be a theoretical ideal, merely a guideline for practical legislation. Same way French constitution has equal rights for all citizen baked into its constitution for more than a century.

carlosjobim
0 replies
11h24m

You are down voted by people who don't understand what the word censorship means. The problem is that the censors don't call it "censorship" anymore, for vanity reasons. Leading us into this dumb modern discourse. The same thing with the word "propaganda", that is misinterpreted to always mean something bad.

Each day the popular vocabulary shrinks more and more, until we're back at cave man levels. Tower of Babylon.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
13h44m

A court ordering for social media accounts to be blocked is censorship, no question about that

This is a bad litmus test. Courts order fraudsters to stop doing fraud all the time. It's censorship. But it's acceptable censorship, even in America where we have a uniquely-potent First Amendment.

drawkward
0 replies
15h6m

Thank you for the context.

blackeyeblitzar
0 replies
12h0m

Musk after several court decisions decided to not comply, even after all involved received due process.

False, there was no due process. Twitter/X’s appeals were not even heard by the Supreme Court, which is probably in part because of the inherent conflict of interest given that the illegal secret censorship orders come from a Supreme Court justice. And also, why are you saying “Musk” did not comply - he’s not CEO of Twitter/X, just someone criticizing Alexandre de Moraes and the state of censorship and democracy in Brazil.

It's not, in the slightest, censorship at all.

Now that some of the secret orders have been published, we see that it is indeed literal censorship as claimed by Twitter/X. De Moraes unilaterally decided that accounts belonging to current elected officials should be deleted in secret. That is literally, completely, censorship.

The continuous disregard of Brazilian laws meant that Musk, which in addition do not paid the fines, also removed his legal representatives from the country, which is not permitted by our legislation.

Stop being dishonest about the situation. You know full well that Twitter/X removed their legal representative because Alexandre de Moraes threatened them personally, with fines, jail time, and even froze their personal financial assets. That is an incredibly authoritarian action. Twitter/X had to close their office to avoid having their staff similarly persecuted. It is a giant embarrassment to Brazil in the world’s eye but also a gross violation of civil liberties.

TechDebtDevin
0 replies
12h39m

I honestly am more apt to believe what an anon on HN says than Musk's verified Twitter account. The guy only knows how to lie.

braiamp
13 replies
17h0m

what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech.

As in Brazil constitution? They don't have free speech, but freedom of expression. Read article 5 of the Brazilian constitution.

siproprio
10 replies
16h40m

What’s the difference between Free Speech and Freedom of Expression?

rtsil
3 replies
15h53m

In France specifically, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (which is an integral part of the Constitution), defines freedom as doing anything which does not harm others, and that the Law determines the limits of a freedom.

Which means Freedom (including of Speech) in its very conception is more bounded that the US notion of Free Speech (which, even though also limited, is less restrictive).

However, Free Speech based on the First Amendment only applies to the individual's relations with the State. A private employer in the US can fire an employee for saying something that doesn't reflect the values of the company, even if that speech was lawful. In France (and I assume most Freedom of Speech countries), the constitutional protection applies even with private entities and an employee cannot be fired for a lawful speech. .

Aerroon
1 replies
13h14m

In France specifically, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (which is an integral part of the Constitution), defines freedom as doing anything which does not harm others, and that the Law determines the limits of a freedom.

But the whole point of freedom of speech is for situations where it does "harm others". If nobody has a problem with your speech, then you don't need laws to protect it. The protection is only useful if speech comes into conflict with someone.

Freedom of speech doesn't stop where somebody else's rights begin, it starts there. There is no need for freedom of speech before that.

jltsiren
0 replies
10h42m

And the entire point of constitutional rights is that they should make the society better. There is no inherent value in abstract principles.

Broadly speaking, freedom of speech can mean two roughly orthogonal things:

1. Lack of government censorship.

2. Freedom of speech as an outcome: a society where people can speak their minds without excessive consequences.

Sense 2 is inherently vague and can't be regulated, as people won't agree on when the consequences are excessive. But it's usually what people want when they care about the freedom of speech.

The two senses are sometimes opposed. If you say something other people find unpleasant and a million people decide to ruin your life, it's clearly against freedom of speech in sense 2. But if you have laws against such mob justice, they can easily violate freedom of speech in sense 1.

Freedom of speech in sense 2 is more about culture than government regulations. If you have a highly polarized society, you can't have freedom of speech in that sense.

FollowingTheDao
0 replies
7h59m

defines freedom as doing anything which does not harm others

Who decides if someone is harmed? Did I really harm someone if I called them a homophobic slur? Can I say that someone harmed me if the mispronounce my name?

lxgr
0 replies
13h42m

Maybe aspirationally, but practically, even the First Amendment has limits:

Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater; prior restraint, as is the case for e.g. restricted data under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954; copyright...

fhdsgbbcaA
0 replies
14h2m

Expression is just a broader term.

carlosjobim
0 replies
11h18m

If you write something, you're not technically speaking. Freedom of expression covers more broadly.

blackeyeblitzar
0 replies
16h13m

There is no difference. From all my searching, these terms are used interchangeably. As far as Brazil is concerned, freedom of expression is freedom of speech. Specifically Article 5 describes four activities of expression that are “free and independent of any censorship”: intellectual activity, artistic activity, scientific activity, and communication activity.

ImJamal
0 replies
16h32m

Usually it means you can't say so called hate speech.

riverrunn01
1 replies
15h4m

the 1st Art of our Constitution is exactly this: "Art. 1º A República Federativa do Brasil, formada pela união indissolúvel dos Estados e Municípios e do Distrito Federal, constitui-se em Estado Democrático de Direito e tem como fundamentos:

I - a soberania;

II - a cidadania;

******III - a dignidade da pessoa humana;**** (The dignity of human being being assured)

Then it comes the Art 5:

  Art. 5º Todos são iguais perante a lei, sem distinção de qualquer natureza, garantindo-se aos brasileiros e aos estrangeiros residentes no País a inviolabilidade do direito à vida, ''''''à liberdade'''''' (freedom, not only speech), à igualdade, à segurança e à propriedade, nos termos seguintes:
[...]

IV - é livre a manifestação do pensamento, sendo vedado o anonimato. V - é assegurado o direito de resposta, proporcional ao agravo, além da indenização por dano material, moral ou à imagem; [...]

In none of art 5 parts it says the freedom of thought and of expression is Absolute, on contrary, i let here for you guys translate yourselves the paragraph V... It's not censorship when you comit a crime, you lose your freedom when you comit a crime (depend on the aggravation of course, its penalty dosimetry)

blackeyeblitzar
0 replies
12h6m

For others reading the parent comment to this one - they left out the most relevant part of the Brazilian constitution for this situation, presumably on purpose to make the secret censorship orders look legal. Within Article 5, is Title 9 which reads:

“IX. expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific, and communication activity is free, independent of any censorship or license”

And note that the introductory text that precedes this reads:

“Everyone is equal before the law, with no distinction whatsoever, guaranteeing to Brazilians and foreigners residing in the Country the inviolability of the rights to life, liberty, equality, security and property, on the following terms:”

In other words, “communication activity” (which posting on Twitter obviously constitutes) is protected without censorship.

Source: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2014?l...

vaidhy
9 replies
18h27m

We are talking about the same Elon who tweeted the picture of the judge behind bars in an masterful attempt to resolve the issue, right?

gradus_ad
6 replies
18h23m

Is that relevant to the illegality of Moraes' secret censorship campaign?

croes
4 replies
18h11m

Is it censorship to block accounts of people who want to overthrow the government?

anankaie
3 replies
18h2m

Yes, it is; governments do not have a magic right to never be questioned or even advocated against.

croes
2 replies
17h55m

A military coup d'état is unconstitutional in nearly every country, to prevent that and protect the intended way of change of government isn't a magical right but simply a duty of the government.

And Musk didn't fight as hard in India or Turkey for accounts of people that did far less.

There's obviously a bias, I wonder why?

https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-jair-bolsonaro-spacex-s...

blackeyeblitzar
1 replies
16h41m

The actual act of a coup is unconstitutional in probably every country. But talking about a coup is not unconstitutional in many countries. For example in the US, seditious speech is protected.

Anyways, Alexandre de Moraes - the Supreme Court justice in this situation - is acting unconstitutionally in multiple ways. Issuing orders to censor, ban, or arrest in secret is depriving the victims of due process and the public of accountability. He also said himself that he is not getting his powers from law but from what the other court he sits on gave him as a new power, which is just a made up legal invention on his part. How can a court make up legal powers, when that is meant to come from the constitution and legislation?

And Musk didn't fight as hard in India or Turkey for accounts of people that did far less.

You are one among many attempting the whataboutism of bringing up Turkey and India, even though it has no bearing on what is happening in Brazil. I don’t agree with censorship in any of these cases. However, Twitter/X has publicly stated that their policy is to comply with local laws in each country. The difference is in the legality of orders per that country’s own laws. In Brazil, there is a right to freedom of expression without censorship, per article 5 of the constitution. Also another difference is that the censorship orders here were done in secret - like with gag orders that make it invisible to the public - and this is both highly unethical but also makes this judge unaccountable and difficult to challenge.

croes
0 replies
11h14m

But talking about a coup is not unconstitutional in many countries. For example in the US, seditious speech is protected.

Unless you were already part in an attempt than it's more likely you aren't just express your opinion but coordinate your next attempt over social media.

Free speech has limit. Just look at Charles Manson, he didn't kill anybody but he talked others into.

You wouldn't call Russian orders through Telegram free speech, would you?

The same entity behaves differently on the same issue but from different requester.

By your logic every complain about racism is whataboutism.

"Why got the black man jailed for drug possession but white man got probation?

"Whataboutism!!!"

throwadobe
0 replies
17h2m

"secret censorship campaign" [citation needed]

srackey
0 replies
17h48m

He’s being shaken down by an authoritarian no different than anyone in Russia, you think he should have tried asking nicely instead?

nine_k
0 replies
16h57m

If the judge's orders clearly contradict the constitution, it's pretty logical to suggest that these would lead him to a jail.

There are various ways to resolve a conflict; to comply to your opponent's demands just because he happens to hold a high enough office is but one of these ways. Complying to unlawful orders so as to preserve profits is often seen as corruption. Sometimes the best way to resolve a conflict correctly is to take a stand.

fjkdlsjflkds
8 replies
11h38m

This is unconstitutional in Brazil per article 5 of the 1988 constitution, so X refused the orders.

This is unconstitutional according to their interpretation of the (very extensive and vague) article 5 of the 1998 constitution, maybe. At the same time, if you disagree with a judicial order, you probably should appeal the order, rather than refuse/ignore it. Ignoring judicial orders has consequences.

Note that the text of the Brazilian constitution explicitly says that the freedom of expression is guaranteed without censorship (it mentions “censorship”).

It says a lot of things (that can be interpreted in many ways). Note that it also says "é livre a manifestação do pensamento, *sendo vedado o anonimato*". Did Twitter/X refuse to give information about accounts, after having been asked by the Supreme Court? If yes, then it can also be said that they are breaking article 5 of the 1988 constitution.

In general, constitutional laws (in Brazil and elsewhere) tend to be rather vague. The devil is in the details. Just because it says somewhere that "é livre a expressão da atividade intelectual, artística, científica e de comunicação, independentemente de censura ou licença", doesn't mean that you are free to express your art of screaming "fire" in a crowded theater, for instance.

If they were legal orders they would have complied, as they have in other countries.

In general, a person (or other legal entity) are not free to pick and choose what laws or judicial orders they want to follow, depending on their own interpretation of the law. Or, I mean... they can... but there are usually consequences to ignoring judicial orders.

Also, it probably is not a great idea to try to intimidate/aggravate/insult/threaten the judge (https://nitter.poast.org/elonmusk/status/1829005086606901481...) during those legal proceedings. Judges tend to not love that.

extheat
7 replies
11h31m

Yes and appeal to whom? Himself, who’s clearly shown himself to be a partisan? Why even need an executive when your judiciary can basically unilaterally function as executive be a legislator in one? Obviously they’re is not the US, but that’s not an excuse to a ridiculous system.

fjkdlsjflkds
5 replies
11h10m

If you cannot appeal (and you probably can't, since this was a judicial order by the Supreme Court), then you have to comply (or face the consequences of ignoring judicial orders).

If the argument is that it is illegal to "censor", due to the Brazilian constitution, then Twitter is already engaging in illegal behaviour whenever it bans accounts (or auto-removes tweets) for using terms Musk dislikes (like "cis" or "cisgender").

I really don't buy the "free speech" argument here, since Twitter has never been an "absolute free speech" space to begin with. Note that Musk had no problem censoring and banning accounts when asked by the Turkish or Indian governments.

Wytwwww
3 replies
8h34m

If the argument is that it is illegal to "censor", due to the Brazilian constitution, then Twitter is already engaging in illegal behaviour whenever it bans accounts

In the US first amendment protections only apply to the government. Is that different in Brazil?

fjkdlsjflkds
2 replies
7h54m

Exactly. It is perfectly legal for a private entity (such as Twitter) to engage in censorship, as they regularly do so. So, the argument that "we can't do that, because that would be illegal" doesn't really fly.

Furthermore, there is already a precedent here: both Telegram and Meta have been previously (temporarily) banned from Brazil until they decided to comply with judicial orders (after which, they were unbanned again). Why does Twitter think they are special in this regard?

If the judicial order is (correctly) justified by an inconstitutional law, then it's that specific law that has to be challenged, not the judicial order.

Wytwwww
1 replies
6h46m

Exactly. It is perfectly legal for a private entity (such as Twitter) to engage in censorship, as they regularly do so. So, the argument that "we can't do that, because that would be illegal" doesn't really fly.

These are in no way equivalent. e.g. the first amendment only protects you from the government not from private organizations (if anything them deciding to publish or not to publish your content is an expression of freedom of speech and is right that the Supreme Court has confirmed). Obviously I'm not fully aware how exactly this works in Brazil but I doubt if it's fundamentally different.

both Telegram and Meta have been previously (temporarily) banned from Brazil

That's still unreasonable.

Also you're still dodging the VPN ban order...

Anyway.. I understand that authoritarianism has a certain appeal to some people and actually might lead to some positive outcomes in some rare cases.

fjkdlsjflkds
0 replies
6h20m

These are in no way equivalent. e.g. the first amendment only protects you from the government not from private organizations (if anything them deciding to publish or not to publish your content is an expression of freedom of speech and is right that the Supreme Court has confirmed).

Sure, but we are not discussing the first amendment, or US law in general. As you must be aware, protection of freedom of expression rights are different in different jurisdictions.

Obviously I'm not fully aware how exactly this works in Brazil but I doubt if it's fundamentally different.

I would not be so sure. For example, it is not legal to display a swastika in Germany (even though Germany is usually considered a democratic rule-of-law country), even though it might be legal to do so in the US.

That's still unreasonable.

Just stating this (without any further argumentation) doesn't make it so. My only point is that, apparently, there is legal precedence for such kinds of things (i.e., banning a certain social network when it refuses to appoint a legal representative in Brazil).

Also you're still dodging the VPN ban order...

I'm not dodging anything... that is a different issue, that we can further discuss, if you want to have a discussion in good faith. Trying to change subjects without addressing the point I made could be seen as moving goalposts, though.

Anyway.. I understand that authoritarianism has a certain appeal to some people [...].

Ad hominem argumentation is not the best approach to argumentation, if you want to be taken seriously and have a discussion in good faith.

blackeyeblitzar
0 replies
38m

If you cannot appeal (and you probably can't, since this was a judicial order by the Supreme Court), then you have to comply (or face the consequences of ignoring judicial orders).

It was a secret order from one justice of the Supreme Court, not an official order or decision from the whole of the Supreme Court. It came with an order to maintain secrecy to avoid public scrutiny, which tells you all you need to know about its legality and ethics. Anyways, X’s appeals were not heard by the same supreme court, and that’s probably in part because the other justices are also intimidated by the aggression and power grab by the authoritarians in the regime - namely de Moraes and Lula himself.

If a government commits atrocities at the highest level in secret, should no one refuse or speak up? Of course not - it’s by airing these out in public that it can even be challenged, if there is corruption or authoritarianism. You don’t have to just blindly comply and accept dictatorships.

Note that Musk had no problem censoring and banning accounts when asked by the Turkish or Indian governments.

This feels like a distraction not an argument - it’s not relevant what happened in other countries. Also X did challenge censorship in India at least, in a lawsuit after Musk acquired Twitter. They lost the lawsuit in that case, but the main thing is that censorship was legal in other jurisdictions where X complied. It’s illegal in Brazilian law, which is why they aren’t caving to the demands of that one single rogue supreme court justice.

throwadobe
0 replies
2h39m

That's not how any of this works! Stop talking about stuff you don't understand.

The court will judge the matter collectively in due time in accordance with Brazilian due process, but judges have the power to decide matters immediately when needed before waiting for the court.

Think of it as someone being sent to jail before their trial when they will be acquitted or imprisoned.

croes
8 replies
18h11m

Isn't it about the people who invaded government buildings on January 8 2923 because they claimed Jair Bolsonaro won the election much like the January 6 attack in the USA after Trump lost?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Brazilian_Congress_atta...

The same people who wanted to overthrow the government and wanted a coup d'état by the military?

I doubt that the US government would differently in such cases.

And Twitter censored accounts on behalf of Turkey and India for political reasons but in Brasil they act differently, maybe Musk is in favor of Bolsonaro.

And that Linda makes the decisions is questionable at best

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-linda-yaccarino-tw...

SpicyLemonZest
6 replies
17h20m

As far as I'm aware, the American government has never ordered a social media platform to ban certain accounts. Even mild government suggestions about social media content are quite controversial in the US.

23B1
3 replies
13h42m

Yes, in the U.S. the obedient capitalists act as proxy censors for the government, in exchange for campaign donations, preferential tax treatment, and weak regulatory enforcement.

petre
2 replies
13h10m

Proxy censors for the gov't? The US president represents the government, yet the company banned him.

Their shareholders don't want controversies screwing up their investment, so the management acted accordingly in the company's best interest.

croes
0 replies
9h20m

I wouldn't call lies controversies.

23B1
0 replies
12h59m

Gosh, who will think of the shareholders?!

UberFly
0 replies
12h7m

You are not so aware then.

siproprio
0 replies
16h38m

Nope.

dgfitz
3 replies
18h30m

Thank you for the clarifying information.

throwadobe
2 replies
17h4m

Take it with a massive grain of salt for it is biased and poorly informed.

mikeywazowski
1 replies
16h8m

Care to elaborate?

aguaviva
2 replies
16h59m

Ultimately these decisions are made by Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X.

And who is her boss, again?

aguaviva
0 replies
14h56m

Not a "big" shareholder but the largest shareholder and chairman of its board.

JumpCrisscross
2 replies
14h4m

by this judge issuing illegal censorship orders

If the order is illegal you show that in court. U.S. district courts constantly issue illegal orders. There is a massive difference between appealing for an emergency stay and just blowing off the court. (Musk is a brilliant entrepreneur. He has given zero shits about the rule of law across his career, domestically or abroad.)

At the end of the day, both sides in this case are posturing. The judge gets to act like he's standing up to us American imperialists. Musk gets affirmation from his anti-work censorship crowd. The fact that X f/k/a Twitter has zero employees in Brazil should tell you how much that market really matters to him.

Ultimately these decisions are made by Linda Yaccarino

This is nonsense. I have a lot of respect for senior people on the X team as well as many of their shareholders. Yaccarino is an obvious puppet.

JCharante
1 replies
13h0m

I mean, let’s be real. X isn’t profitable so does retaining a bunch of users from a country with relatively low disposable income really matter?

I fully support Brazil banning X because a country can do whatever they want, but let’s not pretend X owes Brazil anything.

Brazil is irrelevant to X and countries that act like dictators deserve to be ignored by foreign companies. It’s hilarious to see Brazil play their cards and show they have no power over their citizens by threatening to fine them for using a VPN to access X.

This isn’t bias against LATAM, I also want to see Australia lose business due to their crazy spy laws.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
12h13m

X isn’t profitable so does retaining a bunch of users from a country with relatively low disposable income really matter?

Oh, I totally agree with you. But they're not worth negative money. This was a cheap stunt for both sides to pull off. But it's still a stunt. X's TAM has been cut. Brazil's reputation harmed. But both men have personal interests that make those costs worth it, and there isn't anyone in their respective domains who can check them.

ElectricalUnion
2 replies
13h44m

Note that the text of the Brazilian constitution explicitly says that the freedom of expression is guaranteed without censorship (it mentions “censorship”). If they were legal orders they would have complied, as they have in other countries.

Said "freedom of expression" in Brazil is constrained by the following paragraphs, that for example explicitly:

IV - requires anything considered "free speech" to be explicitly non-anonymous.

V - anything considered "free speech" must pay compensation to harmed third parties.

X - "free speech" can't violate the personal privacy and honor of third parties.

XVII - "free speech" doesn't apply to you if you're trying to assemble a paramilitary force.

It is not "free speech" in the "I speak what I want" sense at all. Violation of those rules isn't considered "censorship" because you didn't have the rights (to be anonymous, to harm others, and to assemble juntas) to start with.

matheusmoreira
1 replies
13h5m

Harming others does not justify censorship. Brazilians get to answer and to be made whole via legal means. Article 5, term V. They don't get to preempt or prevent the speech.

You cited term X which says people's intimacy, private life, honor and image are inviolable. Looks like you didn't finish reading it though. Right after those words is written the following:

the right to be indemnified for the material or moral damage secondary to their violation is guaranteed

It basically says you're entitled to a payday if someone damages your privacy or reputation.

Nowhere does it say that censorship is warranted. The constitution goes out of its way to explicitly mention that censorship is prohibited multiple times and in multiple places.

The expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific and communication activity is free, independently of censorship or license

Any and all censorship of political, ideological or artistic nature is prohibited
JumpCrisscross
0 replies
12h45m

Harming others does not justify censorship

I know nothing about Brazilian law. But in general, we always create exceptions to free speech when balancing harms. Spam filtering. Fraud. Et cetera.

tsimionescu
1 replies
13h40m

I think it's worth noting that "this legal order is unconstitutional therefore I won't abide by it" is still illegal to do in any constitutional democracy that I know of, even if you're ultimately right, including in the USA. You can abide by the order and then seek reparations, but you can't claim something is unconstitutional like that.

Dalewyn
0 replies
12h47m

Obligatory IANAL and speaking from an American perspective.

You certainly can, but it usually takes the form of defying the order and appealing to a higher court for a stay pending trial and then hopefully and eventually a reversal of the order when hopefully it is indeed found to be unconstitutional or otherwise illegal.

throwadobe
1 replies
17h2m

making it impossible for X to challenge what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech

Unconstitutional in which country? And if you disagree with that in Brazil you can make your case to the Supreme Court.

Musk was playing chicken with a Brazilian Supreme Court judge who called his bluff. He obviously lost, because the latter has immediate legal power and X doesn't.

siproprio
0 replies
16h39m

Well se who lost no less than 7 days from now.

throwaway48476
0 replies
16h40m

Unfortunately constitutions are only as good as the people that enforce them. North Korea has a constitution that guarantees civil rights.

mhh__
0 replies
18h15m

Ultimately these decisions are made by Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X.

He's obviously known for his hands off "I just allocate capital" attitude towards his businesses.

gmerc
0 replies
15h58m

"Illegal". That's, by definition, for the court to decide.

viraptor
5 replies
12h53m

well then starlink is free for Brazilian citizens because I don’t want to cut people off from their internet connection

It's only for existing customers and because they can't charge them anymore, but don't want to drop the customers just yet. It's a business continuity plan, not some altruistic gesture.

bad_user
3 replies
12h33m

It's a business continuity plan, not some altruistic gesture.

Why is there someone always making this comment every time a company or someone rich does something good for a bunch of people?

There's no such thing as altruism, with humans it's all self-interest, and that's good actually. Might as well point out that the water is wet. So why make this comment?

viraptor
2 replies
11h50m

Altruism exists. Maybe you haven't seen it yet, but it really does.

I made the comment, because parent suggested that starlink did something for the citizens in general. That's not correct. The good they did was incidental to preserving customers until they can start charging again.

And specifically I mentioned that, because the good part gets played up as some kind of freedom stance by many people online... but it's not. Even the announcement didn't describe it as such.

kelnos
0 replies
9h14m

Sure, but it's still a business decision. On the other side of things, Musk could have complied with the court order, appointed a representative, and accepted that the rep would have their bank accounts frozen and have a pretty bad time of it all. Because Musk might believe being in Brazil is better for his business than not being in Brazil, regardless of any moral/ethical stances he might prefer to take.

Musk could cut off Brazilian Starlink subscribers in the hopes that the backlash would change things in Brazil. But instead he probably thinks keeping those customers on (and happy) for free is the better choice for his business.

I agree with you that altruism exists, but I'm not sure I'm willing to give Musk the benefit of the doubt for many of the decisions he makes.

Wytwwww
0 replies
8h41m

Altruism exists

It doesn't scale though. You end up in a position where you can afford to do something like that if you behave altruistically.

itsoktocry
0 replies
4h45m

It's a business continuity plan, not some altruistic gesture.

What a goofy assertion.

Yeah, the big concern for Starlink and Musk is maintaining non-paying customers.

It's not altruism either, it's political.

bobbruno
0 replies
8h40m

That's the legal justification for blocking X now, not the root cause. Musk did more than refuse to appoint a representative in Brazil (which could be a subsidiary or any legal resident, not necessarily a native Brazilian). X had representation, and when the natural people leading that representation firm were sued (which is legal in Brazil), he shut down the representation, putting X in a non-compliance state to Brazilian law.

The whole thing started because X refused to take down posts judged as defamatory against some politicians in Brazil, as well as some profiles accused of consistently posting fake news and borderline illegal content. One can disagree with the ruling and appeal, but ignoring a Supreme Court Justice order is not a legal option, which led to the escalation.

True that no one would want to step in as a legal representative of X in Brazil right now, but that doesn't change the legal requirement - it exists so that the State has the power to enforce law over companies effectively operating in the country. The US is doing something similar (in process, motivations are quite different) by threatening to ban TikTok, for instance.

The Starlink ruling is mostly being considered an overreach by the Justice. It may take some time, but it will likely be withdrawn. Him deciding to keep the service for free, as long as it complies with the law, bears no matter and should be read most likely as a publicity stunt.

dgfitz
84 replies
19h18m

Disclaimer: indifferent at best to musk, probably more dislike than anything else, but not with vitriol.

So I read that this is all because musk refused to appoint a Brazilian citizen as an X representative, as dictated by Brazilian law. I have not verified this part.

Musk refused because the last person to fill that role had all their bank accounts frozen by the judge.

The judge also cut off payments from Brazilian citizens to starlink, something about relating star link to x. so musk said “well then starlink is free for Brazilian citizens because I don’t want to cut people off from their internet connection.” Or something like that.

Edit: blackeyedblitzar child comment of this has better information.

blackeyeblitzar
76 replies
18h37m

Not exactly. X had a local representative who was threatened by this judge issuing illegal censorship orders. It’s not that they refused to appoint a representative but that they had to get rid of all their employees and legal representation in Brazil because the judge was going after them as individuals, making it impossible for X to challenge what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech.

The root of the issue is that Alexandre de Moraes, a single justice on the Supreme Court, has been issuing secret orders to censor content, ban accounts, and jail people over political speech. This is unconstitutional in Brazil per article 5 of the 1988 constitution, so X refused the orders. Note that the text of the Brazilian constitution explicitly says that the freedom of expression is guaranteed without censorship (it mentions “censorship”). If they were legal orders they would have complied, as they have in other countries.

Also the “Musk refused” part isn’t accurate. Ultimately these decisions are made by Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X.

riverrunn01
13 replies
15h59m

Nope Im Brazilian. And all of this started way before. These orders were not imbalanced -- the blocking of X accounts -- (Ok VPN now is). Musk after several court decisions decided to not comply, even after all involved received due process. It's not, in the slightest, censorship at all. What really happened was violation of ellection rules on daily basis, specially on X but many other social also were fined. META, Tik Tok also had to remove content by court decision and they did comply it. Alexandre de Moraes at election's time was the judge of our TSE -- a branch of supreme court‬ which deals specifically with the electoral process. Many of these accounts participated in January 8, including promoting violence against institutions, some calling for a coup d'état. The continuous disregard of Brazilian laws meant that Musk, which in addition do not paid the fines, also removed his legal representatives from the country, which is not permitted by our legislation.

open4glabs
5 replies
15h0m

Nope, I'm Brazilian and this is "censorship at all"!

bobbruno
3 replies
8h26m

Also brazilian here. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of illegal speech. One is allowed to go public and speak their minds, but if their speech is illegal (hate speech, conspiracy to overthrow the government, political campaigning during embargo periods), there will be consequences for those, and that does not constitute censorship.

Initially, consequences were not that bad (take down of some illegal posts), then they went to removal of recurring offender profiles.X ignored those Supreme Court Justice orders - their only legal course of action being to comply and file an appeal to the Supreme Court as a whole. That led to further escalation against their legal representation in Brazil and their executives (which is according to Brazilian law), which led to Musk shutting down the local representation rather than following the local law. Which put X in a non-compliance state and led to the order for its blocking.

If you understand the initial order to take down posts of defamation and illegal speech as censorship, you comply and appeal. Ignoring a court order is not a legal option.

FollowingTheDao
1 replies
8h6m

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the consequences of illegal speech.

In Brazil you can go to jail for a slur against a queer person. That is not the case in the U.S.

The question is not about Freedom of Speech, it is about changing the laws on what is protected and illegal speech. I do not like Musk as a person, but what he is doing is an act of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience is the active, and professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government.

I am wary of the tightening fence around what is protected speech. I am a historian, and the censors never end up being the good guys.

the_why_of_y
0 replies
6h45m

Civil disobedience means breaking a law in order to argue in court that the law is bad, thereby deliberately putting yourself at risk of serious consequences. This is not civil disobedience, because Elon Musk is not in Brazil, nor a citizen of Brazil, and is not personally at any risk.

VancouverMan
0 replies
4h22m

"Freedom of speech" can't coexist with "illegal speech".

The moment that something is deemed "illegal" to express, there inherently is no more free expression present.

enaaem
0 replies
2h26m

What people don't get is that mild "censorship" is desirable even under common Libertarian ideologies.

The general rule is that you have the freedom to do and say whatever you want as long as you don't harm others.

Unrestricted free speech simply does not exist and any free society will have mild censorship, otherwise a lot of terrorists, criminals and fraudsters could defend themselves under free speech.

welshwelsh
3 replies
13h48m

A court ordering for social media accounts to be blocked is censorship, no question about that.

If there are "election rules" that regulate what can be posted online, that's censorship. Even if people are inciting violence or formenting revolution, banning them is censorship.

Most governments participate in censorship, and most people are OK with some level of censorship. But Brazil's constitution guarantees freedom of speech without censorship, so their courts have no business issuing orders to censor social media.

makeitdouble
0 replies
13h31m

Brazil's constitution guarantees freedom of speech without censorship

That can't work in reality though. So at best it can only be a theoretical ideal, merely a guideline for practical legislation. Same way French constitution has equal rights for all citizen baked into its constitution for more than a century.

carlosjobim
0 replies
11h24m

You are down voted by people who don't understand what the word censorship means. The problem is that the censors don't call it "censorship" anymore, for vanity reasons. Leading us into this dumb modern discourse. The same thing with the word "propaganda", that is misinterpreted to always mean something bad.

Each day the popular vocabulary shrinks more and more, until we're back at cave man levels. Tower of Babylon.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
13h44m

A court ordering for social media accounts to be blocked is censorship, no question about that

This is a bad litmus test. Courts order fraudsters to stop doing fraud all the time. It's censorship. But it's acceptable censorship, even in America where we have a uniquely-potent First Amendment.

drawkward
0 replies
15h6m

Thank you for the context.

blackeyeblitzar
0 replies
12h0m

Musk after several court decisions decided to not comply, even after all involved received due process.

False, there was no due process. Twitter/X’s appeals were not even heard by the Supreme Court, which is probably in part because of the inherent conflict of interest given that the illegal secret censorship orders come from a Supreme Court justice. And also, why are you saying “Musk” did not comply - he’s not CEO of Twitter/X, just someone criticizing Alexandre de Moraes and the state of censorship and democracy in Brazil.

It's not, in the slightest, censorship at all.

Now that some of the secret orders have been published, we see that it is indeed literal censorship as claimed by Twitter/X. De Moraes unilaterally decided that accounts belonging to current elected officials should be deleted in secret. That is literally, completely, censorship.

The continuous disregard of Brazilian laws meant that Musk, which in addition do not paid the fines, also removed his legal representatives from the country, which is not permitted by our legislation.

Stop being dishonest about the situation. You know full well that Twitter/X removed their legal representative because Alexandre de Moraes threatened them personally, with fines, jail time, and even froze their personal financial assets. That is an incredibly authoritarian action. Twitter/X had to close their office to avoid having their staff similarly persecuted. It is a giant embarrassment to Brazil in the world’s eye but also a gross violation of civil liberties.

TechDebtDevin
0 replies
12h39m

I honestly am more apt to believe what an anon on HN says than Musk's verified Twitter account. The guy only knows how to lie.

braiamp
13 replies
17h0m

what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech.

As in Brazil constitution? They don't have free speech, but freedom of expression. Read article 5 of the Brazilian constitution.

siproprio
10 replies
16h40m

What’s the difference between Free Speech and Freedom of Expression?

rtsil
3 replies
15h53m

In France specifically, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (which is an integral part of the Constitution), defines freedom as doing anything which does not harm others, and that the Law determines the limits of a freedom.

Which means Freedom (including of Speech) in its very conception is more bounded that the US notion of Free Speech (which, even though also limited, is less restrictive).

However, Free Speech based on the First Amendment only applies to the individual's relations with the State. A private employer in the US can fire an employee for saying something that doesn't reflect the values of the company, even if that speech was lawful. In France (and I assume most Freedom of Speech countries), the constitutional protection applies even with private entities and an employee cannot be fired for a lawful speech. .

Aerroon
1 replies
13h14m

In France specifically, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (which is an integral part of the Constitution), defines freedom as doing anything which does not harm others, and that the Law determines the limits of a freedom.

But the whole point of freedom of speech is for situations where it does "harm others". If nobody has a problem with your speech, then you don't need laws to protect it. The protection is only useful if speech comes into conflict with someone.

Freedom of speech doesn't stop where somebody else's rights begin, it starts there. There is no need for freedom of speech before that.

jltsiren
0 replies
10h42m

And the entire point of constitutional rights is that they should make the society better. There is no inherent value in abstract principles.

Broadly speaking, freedom of speech can mean two roughly orthogonal things:

1. Lack of government censorship.

2. Freedom of speech as an outcome: a society where people can speak their minds without excessive consequences.

Sense 2 is inherently vague and can't be regulated, as people won't agree on when the consequences are excessive. But it's usually what people want when they care about the freedom of speech.

The two senses are sometimes opposed. If you say something other people find unpleasant and a million people decide to ruin your life, it's clearly against freedom of speech in sense 2. But if you have laws against such mob justice, they can easily violate freedom of speech in sense 1.

Freedom of speech in sense 2 is more about culture than government regulations. If you have a highly polarized society, you can't have freedom of speech in that sense.

FollowingTheDao
0 replies
7h59m

defines freedom as doing anything which does not harm others

Who decides if someone is harmed? Did I really harm someone if I called them a homophobic slur? Can I say that someone harmed me if the mispronounce my name?

lxgr
0 replies
13h42m

Maybe aspirationally, but practically, even the First Amendment has limits:

Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater; prior restraint, as is the case for e.g. restricted data under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954; copyright...

fhdsgbbcaA
0 replies
14h2m

Expression is just a broader term.

carlosjobim
0 replies
11h18m

If you write something, you're not technically speaking. Freedom of expression covers more broadly.

blackeyeblitzar
0 replies
16h13m

There is no difference. From all my searching, these terms are used interchangeably. As far as Brazil is concerned, freedom of expression is freedom of speech. Specifically Article 5 describes four activities of expression that are “free and independent of any censorship”: intellectual activity, artistic activity, scientific activity, and communication activity.

ImJamal
0 replies
16h32m

Usually it means you can't say so called hate speech.

riverrunn01
1 replies
15h4m

the 1st Art of our Constitution is exactly this: "Art. 1º A República Federativa do Brasil, formada pela união indissolúvel dos Estados e Municípios e do Distrito Federal, constitui-se em Estado Democrático de Direito e tem como fundamentos:

I - a soberania;

II - a cidadania;

******III - a dignidade da pessoa humana;**** (The dignity of human being being assured)

Then it comes the Art 5:

  Art. 5º Todos são iguais perante a lei, sem distinção de qualquer natureza, garantindo-se aos brasileiros e aos estrangeiros residentes no País a inviolabilidade do direito à vida, ''''''à liberdade'''''' (freedom, not only speech), à igualdade, à segurança e à propriedade, nos termos seguintes:
[...]

IV - é livre a manifestação do pensamento, sendo vedado o anonimato. V - é assegurado o direito de resposta, proporcional ao agravo, além da indenização por dano material, moral ou à imagem; [...]

In none of art 5 parts it says the freedom of thought and of expression is Absolute, on contrary, i let here for you guys translate yourselves the paragraph V... It's not censorship when you comit a crime, you lose your freedom when you comit a crime (depend on the aggravation of course, its penalty dosimetry)

blackeyeblitzar
0 replies
12h6m

For others reading the parent comment to this one - they left out the most relevant part of the Brazilian constitution for this situation, presumably on purpose to make the secret censorship orders look legal. Within Article 5, is Title 9 which reads:

“IX. expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific, and communication activity is free, independent of any censorship or license”

And note that the introductory text that precedes this reads:

“Everyone is equal before the law, with no distinction whatsoever, guaranteeing to Brazilians and foreigners residing in the Country the inviolability of the rights to life, liberty, equality, security and property, on the following terms:”

In other words, “communication activity” (which posting on Twitter obviously constitutes) is protected without censorship.

Source: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2014?l...

vaidhy
9 replies
18h27m

We are talking about the same Elon who tweeted the picture of the judge behind bars in an masterful attempt to resolve the issue, right?

gradus_ad
6 replies
18h23m

Is that relevant to the illegality of Moraes' secret censorship campaign?

croes
4 replies
18h11m

Is it censorship to block accounts of people who want to overthrow the government?

anankaie
3 replies
18h2m

Yes, it is; governments do not have a magic right to never be questioned or even advocated against.

croes
2 replies
17h55m

A military coup d'état is unconstitutional in nearly every country, to prevent that and protect the intended way of change of government isn't a magical right but simply a duty of the government.

And Musk didn't fight as hard in India or Turkey for accounts of people that did far less.

There's obviously a bias, I wonder why?

https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-jair-bolsonaro-spacex-s...

blackeyeblitzar
1 replies
16h41m

The actual act of a coup is unconstitutional in probably every country. But talking about a coup is not unconstitutional in many countries. For example in the US, seditious speech is protected.

Anyways, Alexandre de Moraes - the Supreme Court justice in this situation - is acting unconstitutionally in multiple ways. Issuing orders to censor, ban, or arrest in secret is depriving the victims of due process and the public of accountability. He also said himself that he is not getting his powers from law but from what the other court he sits on gave him as a new power, which is just a made up legal invention on his part. How can a court make up legal powers, when that is meant to come from the constitution and legislation?

And Musk didn't fight as hard in India or Turkey for accounts of people that did far less.

You are one among many attempting the whataboutism of bringing up Turkey and India, even though it has no bearing on what is happening in Brazil. I don’t agree with censorship in any of these cases. However, Twitter/X has publicly stated that their policy is to comply with local laws in each country. The difference is in the legality of orders per that country’s own laws. In Brazil, there is a right to freedom of expression without censorship, per article 5 of the constitution. Also another difference is that the censorship orders here were done in secret - like with gag orders that make it invisible to the public - and this is both highly unethical but also makes this judge unaccountable and difficult to challenge.

croes
0 replies
11h14m

But talking about a coup is not unconstitutional in many countries. For example in the US, seditious speech is protected.

Unless you were already part in an attempt than it's more likely you aren't just express your opinion but coordinate your next attempt over social media.

Free speech has limit. Just look at Charles Manson, he didn't kill anybody but he talked others into.

You wouldn't call Russian orders through Telegram free speech, would you?

The same entity behaves differently on the same issue but from different requester.

By your logic every complain about racism is whataboutism.

"Why got the black man jailed for drug possession but white man got probation?

"Whataboutism!!!"

throwadobe
0 replies
17h2m

"secret censorship campaign" [citation needed]

srackey
0 replies
17h48m

He’s being shaken down by an authoritarian no different than anyone in Russia, you think he should have tried asking nicely instead?

nine_k
0 replies
16h57m

If the judge's orders clearly contradict the constitution, it's pretty logical to suggest that these would lead him to a jail.

There are various ways to resolve a conflict; to comply to your opponent's demands just because he happens to hold a high enough office is but one of these ways. Complying to unlawful orders so as to preserve profits is often seen as corruption. Sometimes the best way to resolve a conflict correctly is to take a stand.

fjkdlsjflkds
8 replies
11h38m

This is unconstitutional in Brazil per article 5 of the 1988 constitution, so X refused the orders.

This is unconstitutional according to their interpretation of the (very extensive and vague) article 5 of the 1998 constitution, maybe. At the same time, if you disagree with a judicial order, you probably should appeal the order, rather than refuse/ignore it. Ignoring judicial orders has consequences.

Note that the text of the Brazilian constitution explicitly says that the freedom of expression is guaranteed without censorship (it mentions “censorship”).

It says a lot of things (that can be interpreted in many ways). Note that it also says "é livre a manifestação do pensamento, *sendo vedado o anonimato*". Did Twitter/X refuse to give information about accounts, after having been asked by the Supreme Court? If yes, then it can also be said that they are breaking article 5 of the 1988 constitution.

In general, constitutional laws (in Brazil and elsewhere) tend to be rather vague. The devil is in the details. Just because it says somewhere that "é livre a expressão da atividade intelectual, artística, científica e de comunicação, independentemente de censura ou licença", doesn't mean that you are free to express your art of screaming "fire" in a crowded theater, for instance.

If they were legal orders they would have complied, as they have in other countries.

In general, a person (or other legal entity) are not free to pick and choose what laws or judicial orders they want to follow, depending on their own interpretation of the law. Or, I mean... they can... but there are usually consequences to ignoring judicial orders.

Also, it probably is not a great idea to try to intimidate/aggravate/insult/threaten the judge (https://nitter.poast.org/elonmusk/status/1829005086606901481...) during those legal proceedings. Judges tend to not love that.

extheat
7 replies
11h31m

Yes and appeal to whom? Himself, who’s clearly shown himself to be a partisan? Why even need an executive when your judiciary can basically unilaterally function as executive be a legislator in one? Obviously they’re is not the US, but that’s not an excuse to a ridiculous system.

fjkdlsjflkds
5 replies
11h10m

If you cannot appeal (and you probably can't, since this was a judicial order by the Supreme Court), then you have to comply (or face the consequences of ignoring judicial orders).

If the argument is that it is illegal to "censor", due to the Brazilian constitution, then Twitter is already engaging in illegal behaviour whenever it bans accounts (or auto-removes tweets) for using terms Musk dislikes (like "cis" or "cisgender").

I really don't buy the "free speech" argument here, since Twitter has never been an "absolute free speech" space to begin with. Note that Musk had no problem censoring and banning accounts when asked by the Turkish or Indian governments.

Wytwwww
3 replies
8h34m

If the argument is that it is illegal to "censor", due to the Brazilian constitution, then Twitter is already engaging in illegal behaviour whenever it bans accounts

In the US first amendment protections only apply to the government. Is that different in Brazil?

fjkdlsjflkds
2 replies
7h54m

Exactly. It is perfectly legal for a private entity (such as Twitter) to engage in censorship, as they regularly do so. So, the argument that "we can't do that, because that would be illegal" doesn't really fly.

Furthermore, there is already a precedent here: both Telegram and Meta have been previously (temporarily) banned from Brazil until they decided to comply with judicial orders (after which, they were unbanned again). Why does Twitter think they are special in this regard?

If the judicial order is (correctly) justified by an inconstitutional law, then it's that specific law that has to be challenged, not the judicial order.

Wytwwww
1 replies
6h46m

Exactly. It is perfectly legal for a private entity (such as Twitter) to engage in censorship, as they regularly do so. So, the argument that "we can't do that, because that would be illegal" doesn't really fly.

These are in no way equivalent. e.g. the first amendment only protects you from the government not from private organizations (if anything them deciding to publish or not to publish your content is an expression of freedom of speech and is right that the Supreme Court has confirmed). Obviously I'm not fully aware how exactly this works in Brazil but I doubt if it's fundamentally different.

both Telegram and Meta have been previously (temporarily) banned from Brazil

That's still unreasonable.

Also you're still dodging the VPN ban order...

Anyway.. I understand that authoritarianism has a certain appeal to some people and actually might lead to some positive outcomes in some rare cases.

fjkdlsjflkds
0 replies
6h20m

These are in no way equivalent. e.g. the first amendment only protects you from the government not from private organizations (if anything them deciding to publish or not to publish your content is an expression of freedom of speech and is right that the Supreme Court has confirmed).

Sure, but we are not discussing the first amendment, or US law in general. As you must be aware, protection of freedom of expression rights are different in different jurisdictions.

Obviously I'm not fully aware how exactly this works in Brazil but I doubt if it's fundamentally different.

I would not be so sure. For example, it is not legal to display a swastika in Germany (even though Germany is usually considered a democratic rule-of-law country), even though it might be legal to do so in the US.

That's still unreasonable.

Just stating this (without any further argumentation) doesn't make it so. My only point is that, apparently, there is legal precedence for such kinds of things (i.e., banning a certain social network when it refuses to appoint a legal representative in Brazil).

Also you're still dodging the VPN ban order...

I'm not dodging anything... that is a different issue, that we can further discuss, if you want to have a discussion in good faith. Trying to change subjects without addressing the point I made could be seen as moving goalposts, though.

Anyway.. I understand that authoritarianism has a certain appeal to some people [...].

Ad hominem argumentation is not the best approach to argumentation, if you want to be taken seriously and have a discussion in good faith.

blackeyeblitzar
0 replies
38m

If you cannot appeal (and you probably can't, since this was a judicial order by the Supreme Court), then you have to comply (or face the consequences of ignoring judicial orders).

It was a secret order from one justice of the Supreme Court, not an official order or decision from the whole of the Supreme Court. It came with an order to maintain secrecy to avoid public scrutiny, which tells you all you need to know about its legality and ethics. Anyways, X’s appeals were not heard by the same supreme court, and that’s probably in part because the other justices are also intimidated by the aggression and power grab by the authoritarians in the regime - namely de Moraes and Lula himself.

If a government commits atrocities at the highest level in secret, should no one refuse or speak up? Of course not - it’s by airing these out in public that it can even be challenged, if there is corruption or authoritarianism. You don’t have to just blindly comply and accept dictatorships.

Note that Musk had no problem censoring and banning accounts when asked by the Turkish or Indian governments.

This feels like a distraction not an argument - it’s not relevant what happened in other countries. Also X did challenge censorship in India at least, in a lawsuit after Musk acquired Twitter. They lost the lawsuit in that case, but the main thing is that censorship was legal in other jurisdictions where X complied. It’s illegal in Brazilian law, which is why they aren’t caving to the demands of that one single rogue supreme court justice.

throwadobe
0 replies
2h39m

That's not how any of this works! Stop talking about stuff you don't understand.

The court will judge the matter collectively in due time in accordance with Brazilian due process, but judges have the power to decide matters immediately when needed before waiting for the court.

Think of it as someone being sent to jail before their trial when they will be acquitted or imprisoned.

croes
8 replies
18h11m

Isn't it about the people who invaded government buildings on January 8 2923 because they claimed Jair Bolsonaro won the election much like the January 6 attack in the USA after Trump lost?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Brazilian_Congress_atta...

The same people who wanted to overthrow the government and wanted a coup d'état by the military?

I doubt that the US government would differently in such cases.

And Twitter censored accounts on behalf of Turkey and India for political reasons but in Brasil they act differently, maybe Musk is in favor of Bolsonaro.

And that Linda makes the decisions is questionable at best

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-linda-yaccarino-tw...

SpicyLemonZest
6 replies
17h20m

As far as I'm aware, the American government has never ordered a social media platform to ban certain accounts. Even mild government suggestions about social media content are quite controversial in the US.

23B1
3 replies
13h42m

Yes, in the U.S. the obedient capitalists act as proxy censors for the government, in exchange for campaign donations, preferential tax treatment, and weak regulatory enforcement.

petre
2 replies
13h10m

Proxy censors for the gov't? The US president represents the government, yet the company banned him.

Their shareholders don't want controversies screwing up their investment, so the management acted accordingly in the company's best interest.

croes
0 replies
9h20m

I wouldn't call lies controversies.

23B1
0 replies
12h59m

Gosh, who will think of the shareholders?!

UberFly
0 replies
12h7m

You are not so aware then.

siproprio
0 replies
16h38m

Nope.

dgfitz
3 replies
18h30m

Thank you for the clarifying information.

throwadobe
2 replies
17h4m

Take it with a massive grain of salt for it is biased and poorly informed.

mikeywazowski
1 replies
16h8m

Care to elaborate?

aguaviva
2 replies
16h59m

Ultimately these decisions are made by Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X.

And who is her boss, again?

aguaviva
0 replies
14h56m

Not a "big" shareholder but the largest shareholder and chairman of its board.

JumpCrisscross
2 replies
14h4m

by this judge issuing illegal censorship orders

If the order is illegal you show that in court. U.S. district courts constantly issue illegal orders. There is a massive difference between appealing for an emergency stay and just blowing off the court. (Musk is a brilliant entrepreneur. He has given zero shits about the rule of law across his career, domestically or abroad.)

At the end of the day, both sides in this case are posturing. The judge gets to act like he's standing up to us American imperialists. Musk gets affirmation from his anti-work censorship crowd. The fact that X f/k/a Twitter has zero employees in Brazil should tell you how much that market really matters to him.

Ultimately these decisions are made by Linda Yaccarino

This is nonsense. I have a lot of respect for senior people on the X team as well as many of their shareholders. Yaccarino is an obvious puppet.

JCharante
1 replies
13h0m

I mean, let’s be real. X isn’t profitable so does retaining a bunch of users from a country with relatively low disposable income really matter?

I fully support Brazil banning X because a country can do whatever they want, but let’s not pretend X owes Brazil anything.

Brazil is irrelevant to X and countries that act like dictators deserve to be ignored by foreign companies. It’s hilarious to see Brazil play their cards and show they have no power over their citizens by threatening to fine them for using a VPN to access X.

This isn’t bias against LATAM, I also want to see Australia lose business due to their crazy spy laws.

JumpCrisscross
0 replies
12h13m

X isn’t profitable so does retaining a bunch of users from a country with relatively low disposable income really matter?

Oh, I totally agree with you. But they're not worth negative money. This was a cheap stunt for both sides to pull off. But it's still a stunt. X's TAM has been cut. Brazil's reputation harmed. But both men have personal interests that make those costs worth it, and there isn't anyone in their respective domains who can check them.

ElectricalUnion
2 replies
13h44m

Note that the text of the Brazilian constitution explicitly says that the freedom of expression is guaranteed without censorship (it mentions “censorship”). If they were legal orders they would have complied, as they have in other countries.

Said "freedom of expression" in Brazil is constrained by the following paragraphs, that for example explicitly:

IV - requires anything considered "free speech" to be explicitly non-anonymous.

V - anything considered "free speech" must pay compensation to harmed third parties.

X - "free speech" can't violate the personal privacy and honor of third parties.

XVII - "free speech" doesn't apply to you if you're trying to assemble a paramilitary force.

It is not "free speech" in the "I speak what I want" sense at all. Violation of those rules isn't considered "censorship" because you didn't have the rights (to be anonymous, to harm others, and to assemble juntas) to start with.

matheusmoreira
1 replies
13h5m

Harming others does not justify censorship. Brazilians get to answer and to be made whole via legal means. Article 5, term V. They don't get to preempt or prevent the speech.

You cited term X which says people's intimacy, private life, honor and image are inviolable. Looks like you didn't finish reading it though. Right after those words is written the following:

the right to be indemnified for the material or moral damage secondary to their violation is guaranteed

It basically says you're entitled to a payday if someone damages your privacy or reputation.

Nowhere does it say that censorship is warranted. The constitution goes out of its way to explicitly mention that censorship is prohibited multiple times and in multiple places.

The expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific and communication activity is free, independently of censorship or license

Any and all censorship of political, ideological or artistic nature is prohibited
JumpCrisscross
0 replies
12h45m

Harming others does not justify censorship

I know nothing about Brazilian law. But in general, we always create exceptions to free speech when balancing harms. Spam filtering. Fraud. Et cetera.

tsimionescu
1 replies
13h40m

I think it's worth noting that "this legal order is unconstitutional therefore I won't abide by it" is still illegal to do in any constitutional democracy that I know of, even if you're ultimately right, including in the USA. You can abide by the order and then seek reparations, but you can't claim something is unconstitutional like that.

Dalewyn
0 replies
12h47m

Obligatory IANAL and speaking from an American perspective.

You certainly can, but it usually takes the form of defying the order and appealing to a higher court for a stay pending trial and then hopefully and eventually a reversal of the order when hopefully it is indeed found to be unconstitutional or otherwise illegal.

throwadobe
1 replies
17h2m

making it impossible for X to challenge what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech

Unconstitutional in which country? And if you disagree with that in Brazil you can make your case to the Supreme Court.

Musk was playing chicken with a Brazilian Supreme Court judge who called his bluff. He obviously lost, because the latter has immediate legal power and X doesn't.

siproprio
0 replies
16h39m

Well se who lost no less than 7 days from now.

throwaway48476
0 replies
16h40m

Unfortunately constitutions are only as good as the people that enforce them. North Korea has a constitution that guarantees civil rights.

mhh__
0 replies
18h15m

Ultimately these decisions are made by Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X.

He's obviously known for his hands off "I just allocate capital" attitude towards his businesses.

gmerc
0 replies
15h58m

"Illegal". That's, by definition, for the court to decide.

viraptor
5 replies
12h53m

well then starlink is free for Brazilian citizens because I don’t want to cut people off from their internet connection

It's only for existing customers and because they can't charge them anymore, but don't want to drop the customers just yet. It's a business continuity plan, not some altruistic gesture.

bad_user
3 replies
12h33m

It's a business continuity plan, not some altruistic gesture.

Why is there someone always making this comment every time a company or someone rich does something good for a bunch of people?

There's no such thing as altruism, with humans it's all self-interest, and that's good actually. Might as well point out that the water is wet. So why make this comment?

viraptor
2 replies
11h50m

Altruism exists. Maybe you haven't seen it yet, but it really does.

I made the comment, because parent suggested that starlink did something for the citizens in general. That's not correct. The good they did was incidental to preserving customers until they can start charging again.

And specifically I mentioned that, because the good part gets played up as some kind of freedom stance by many people online... but it's not. Even the announcement didn't describe it as such.

kelnos
0 replies
9h14m

Sure, but it's still a business decision. On the other side of things, Musk could have complied with the court order, appointed a representative, and accepted that the rep would have their bank accounts frozen and have a pretty bad time of it all. Because Musk might believe being in Brazil is better for his business than not being in Brazil, regardless of any moral/ethical stances he might prefer to take.

Musk could cut off Brazilian Starlink subscribers in the hopes that the backlash would change things in Brazil. But instead he probably thinks keeping those customers on (and happy) for free is the better choice for his business.

I agree with you that altruism exists, but I'm not sure I'm willing to give Musk the benefit of the doubt for many of the decisions he makes.

Wytwwww
0 replies
8h41m

Altruism exists

It doesn't scale though. You end up in a position where you can afford to do something like that if you behave altruistically.

itsoktocry
0 replies
4h45m

It's a business continuity plan, not some altruistic gesture.

What a goofy assertion.

Yeah, the big concern for Starlink and Musk is maintaining non-paying customers.

It's not altruism either, it's political.

bobbruno
0 replies
8h40m

That's the legal justification for blocking X now, not the root cause. Musk did more than refuse to appoint a representative in Brazil (which could be a subsidiary or any legal resident, not necessarily a native Brazilian). X had representation, and when the natural people leading that representation firm were sued (which is legal in Brazil), he shut down the representation, putting X in a non-compliance state to Brazilian law.

The whole thing started because X refused to take down posts judged as defamatory against some politicians in Brazil, as well as some profiles accused of consistently posting fake news and borderline illegal content. One can disagree with the ruling and appeal, but ignoring a Supreme Court Justice order is not a legal option, which led to the escalation.

True that no one would want to step in as a legal representative of X in Brazil right now, but that doesn't change the legal requirement - it exists so that the State has the power to enforce law over companies effectively operating in the country. The US is doing something similar (in process, motivations are quite different) by threatening to ban TikTok, for instance.

The Starlink ruling is mostly being considered an overreach by the Justice. It may take some time, but it will likely be withdrawn. Him deciding to keep the service for free, as long as it complies with the law, bears no matter and should be read most likely as a publicity stunt.

joejohnson
49 replies
1d4h

Hopefully most people migrate to one of the alternatives not owned by an American oligarch

adventured
48 replies
1d3h

There are no possible alternatives to US based services unless you enjoy extreme restrictions on speech. Europe has become a big no-go zone for speech over the past decade, they're outright hostile and authoritarian about it (with only a few exceptions among European nations). And the direction re liberalism and human rights in Europe is overwhelmingly hostile toward speech. And for South America, Africa and Asia you can entirely forget about it, there are no reliable speech protected locations in any of those.

mstipetic
34 replies
1d3h

Yes because we learned from the past where free speech was severely abused to spread propaganda and lies. Unfortunately you guys are also learning the same lesson now. I see no reason why someone should be allowed to spread obvious lies for political gain or have obvious foreign actors stir up trouble repeatedly

blackeyeblitzar
9 replies
15h29m

I see no reason why someone should be allowed to spread obvious lies

The right to lie is fundamental to the principle of freedom of speech. Also the lies you think are “obvious” are almost certainly not obvious to everyone - they rarely are. And if someone cannot share a different view then you can’t arrive at the truth.

JumpCrisscross
8 replies
14h2m

right to lie is fundamental to the principle of freedom of speech

It's obviously not. We prosecute fraud. No freedom can be absolute unless it is singular.

blackeyeblitzar
7 replies
13h40m

I wasn’t calling it absolute. I used the word fundamental. My meaning was that giving people this freedom means giving them the freedom to lie as well. I agree that we can debate specific exceptions, which I feel SCOTUS precedence has explored in very nuanced ways. But that’s not where I was going. I was making the point that even if you think something is a ‘truth’, what you perceive as a ‘lie’ must be allowed since only through that debate can people find their way to the truth. A truth that is just unchallenged feels more like propaganda.

JumpCrisscross
6 replies
12h51m

giving people this freedom means giving them the freedom to lie as well. I agree that we can debate specific exceptions

We can. But we don't and never have. Anyone arguing for the freedom to lie without consequence is off the deep end. There has never been a society that doesn't punish lying and fraud. (What constitutes a lie is a deeper question.)

even if you think something is a ‘truth’, what you perceive as a ‘lie’ must be allowed

Why? Also, where? Ever?

If I go and commit a bunch of fraud, I'd expect--at best--riotious laughter from anyone with more than two brain cells if I offered, as my defence, that I cannot be punished for defrauding everyone because I'm part of the truth-finding process.

truth that is just unchallenged feels more like propaganda

Propaganda is regularly challenged. A truth that cannot be challenged is an article of faith. This entire debate reeks of arguments from faith on both sides.

EnigmaFlare
4 replies
11h58m

Fraud isn't just lying, it also has to be for some sort of personal gain, typically financial. You're taking their money too. If you tell people that if they invest in your pyramid scheme they'll get rich but you have no actual pyramid scheme and don't take anyone's money, then it's not fraud and shouldn't be banned in my opinion. But it is a lie.

JumpCrisscross
3 replies
11h54m

Fraud isn't just lying, it also has to be for some sort of personal gain

One, not true. If a real estate agent sells you a house based on a bunch of lies and somehow forgets to charge a commission, they're still punished.

Two, you're still drawing criteria per which speech is punished.

EnigmaFlare
2 replies
11h53m

Well OK but he still sold the house. If you're not doing anything, just talking, it's not fraud. People often offer to sell a bridge to somebody as a way of saying they're gullible. That's not fraud because they're not actually selling the bridge.

JumpCrisscross
1 replies
11h43m

he still sold the house. If you're not doing anything, just talking, it's not fraud

Let's edit the premise. No sale occurs. The agent spins some yarn, but you catch on and report them to a regulator. Do you expect them to go unpunished simply because it was all talk? Should they?

stale2002
0 replies
2h4m

Do you expect them to go unpunished simply because it was all talk? Should they?

If there was no house to be sold, and the agent wasn't even an agent, and they had no way of accepting that money, then of course they should not be punished.

As an example, lets say it was a youtuber who did this, and they recorded the video as a funny prank to post on the internet.

This would not be illegal and they would not be punished.

a_victorp
0 replies
8h37m

I totally agree with you.

Saying that lying is part of the truth finding process demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of how any science work.

tirant
8 replies
1d3h

The spread of lies or false information has always been the price the pay in order to have free speech.

It is the task of the individuals in free societies to discern the lies from the truth, or at least to choose their tools in doing so.

You’re lying to yourself if you believe you can have real human free speech with a system capable of censoring all lies.

mstipetic
6 replies
1d3h

Yes but once people mess up and choose the wrong thing it’s very hard to go back. There are plenty of examples of countries where bad actors have taken over all institutions and what then? There are not takesies backsies

dmix
3 replies
17h37m

And you think censorship will solve this? You’ll just get a different sort of monster. One that probably appeals to your worldview in the short term because you fit the typical person you think will be controlling it forever and you think the scope will somehow to be constrained to a small group of things you don’t like.

Well intentioned, but extremely naive. Something our society will sadly have to relearn every century or so.

meiraleal
2 replies
16h39m

And you think censorship will solve this?

A media company being punished isn't censorship , media companies aren't above the law.

stale2002
1 replies
2h9m

A media company

Text from the 1st amendment: "or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"

You see that part that says "The press"? Thats what a media company is.

Yes, if the government punishes "The press" for its speech, and threatens it with legal action, that is by definition something that effects free speech and is censorship.

Definitionally, I cannot think of something that could be more accurately be described as censorship.

meiraleal
0 replies
23m

Yes, if the government punishes "The press" for its speech

That wasn't the case, the case was "the press" covering criminals. Being the press don't give a company free pass to commit crimes and Xitter is paying for that.

PS: "1st amendment" is an American term that doesn't mean anything outside of american jurisdiction (and maybe not even inside, see Tiktok).

EnigmaFlare
1 replies
12h5m

Do you consider anti-government Chinese people, such as Falun Gong members or general pro-democracy activists to be bad actors and that censoring their speech is important to protect institutions from them? I'm trying to point out that you can't simply decide who's good and who's bad. Censorship entrenches whoever happens to be in power regardless of their merits. Maybe you think democracy is the important part and autocratic governments are wrong to do censorship while democratic ones are wrong to allow free speech?

a_victorp
0 replies
8h41m

That's a very black and white view of ways of restricting speech. Aside from the US most democracies have some sort of limits to free speech and not all of them have turned into autocracies. To counter your argument, absolute freedom of speech allows whoever controls the media to create narratives and manipulate public opinion without consequences

brightball
0 replies
18h40m

Yes. We are supposed to be able to rely on evidence from investigations and hungry reporters with integrity to expose the truth eventually.

hybrid_study
7 replies
18h27m

this is called Popper's Tolerance Paradox, and you are quite right.

it's truly amazing how many people dont really get that having only 99% free speech is just fine

semiquaver
5 replies
18h0m

99% of speech is bland and unobjectionable. It’s the 1% that needs protection.

computerfriend
0 replies
13h57m

It doesn't seem reasonable or work well to the holocaust deniers.

WrongAssumption
0 replies
13h45m

Did you read the article you posted? It doesn’t sound like it’s working well at all.

throwaway48476
0 replies
16h17m

In Arizona a giant home builder complained about a home inspector called CyFy posting tiktoks showing their shoddy construction. What you consider bland and unobjectionable they get very upset about.

https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/we-were-una...

gruez
0 replies
17h8m

Exactly. It's specifically the objectionable speech that needs protection, not stuff like "cats are cute".

TheCleric
0 replies
17h24m

It isn’t the problem of having only 99% free speech. It’s getting people to agree to which 99%.

LightHugger
2 replies
1d3h

Because people lie about what the lies are, without fail. As soon as any "misinformation" rule becomes a thing, it is already being abused by liars.

timeon
1 replies
1d3h

Liars do not need rule to abuse. They will first manipulate society and crate rules if needed afterwards. That is the nature of populism.

mstipetic
0 replies
1d2h

I have no idea why you’re being downvoted. We’ve seen this play out multiple times

mynameishere
1 replies
17h42m

I learned that tweets by nobodies on topics such as Hunter Biden's laptop or Russiagate or Israel's behavior in Gaza have more credibility than the entire mainstream media. I fully understand the danger of lies (more than you ever will) and that is precisely why I support free speech for ordinary people.

throwaway48476
0 replies
16h20m

People choose the facts they want and it's incredibly dangerous to let them censor any dissent from their personal reality.

dgfitz
0 replies
1d3h

The US learned a few lessons from alcohol prohibition, most of them tough and painful.

Banning a thing that allows “obvious lies” will have knock-on effects that haven’t been realized yet.

I guess we learned how to make faster cars to outrun cops…?

Aerroon
0 replies
12h51m

The US is a ~250 year old continuous democracy. Almost no European states can say the same. After WW1 a lot of democratic European states popped up. Two decades later half of them were autocratic.

I think it's half that our governments don't want to give away control, lest the peasants become uppity. And the other half is that that's just how the dice landed when the laws were first created.

morkalork
11 replies
1d3h

Social media is trending towards regional balkanisation. Governments are clueing into the fact giving everyone including foreign states free reign to broadcast to, and manipulate, their constituants is a bad idea. Just look at what happened in the UK recently with the riots. Twitter's days are numbered there.

chipdart
5 replies
1d

Social media is trending towards regional balkanisation.

By choosing to frame things like that, it almost sounds like multinational monopolies on social media controlled by murderous fascist regimes and used to push industrial loads of machine-generated propaganda is something that's somehow preferable.

morkalork
4 replies
23h4m

Your new digital town square brought to you in part by the House of Saud, where there's free speech for everyone but some accounts are more equal than others and cisgender is a slur.

chipdart
3 replies
22h22m

Saudi Arabia is of course Twitter's second largest shareholder.

But Twitter is also owned by Russian oligarchs linked to Putin himself.

https://www.dw.com/en/what-do-xs-alleged-ties-to-russian-oli...

We're talking about Elon Musk's Twitter, who around the time of Russia's invasion of Ukraine was found to have hardcoded censorship of pro-ukraine content as well as users who posted pro-Ukraine content on Twitter.

petre
1 replies
12h53m

This is just speculation. I see videos from Ukraine sticking it to the Russians like every other day from Twitter, shared with the news. Also from Telegram channels. The most recent one was with a downed Su-25. Here:

https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1828661567094984774

chipdart
0 replies
8h11m

This is just speculation.

This is not speculation. When Elon Musk did that stunt on open-sourcing Twitter's source code right after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the source code explicitly included references to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in hardcoded rules to downrank discussions on the topic.

https://gizmodo.com/twitter-musk-ukraine-crisis-open-source-...

This is just the stuff he accidentally leaked.

declan_roberts
3 replies
18h0m

You believe the riots in UK are because of twitter?

People are living in parallel universes.

sega_sai
2 replies
17h14m

They were to large extent provoked by misinformation about the attacker on kids party. The misinformation stayed on twitter for long time and was spread out by many people including Musk.

throwaway48476
1 replies
16h31m

If you believe that I have a colour revolution theory to sell you.

churchill
0 replies
15h50m

A crazed 17yo son of African immigrants murdered 3 kids. Then, the far-right seized on it to make assumptions about the attacker, speculate he was a Muslim, and even provide a fake name. In fact, some of these Twitter accounts (Tristan Tate, etc.) shared the picture of a young Black preacher as the attacker. I saw it and I know when the post disappeared from EndWokeness' and Tristan Tate's page while I was reading through the comments. The young man in question had to make video clarifying he wasn't the attacker.

macinjosh
0 replies
12h48m

A bad idea for who? The people in power of course.

Seems like this is a case of not letting the prisoners talk to each other too much lest they start to have some ideas of their own.

joejohnson
0 replies
1d3h

Mastodon, Bluesky, many other less-popular federated social networks.

verdverm
34 replies
19h23m

I left Xitter about 6 weeks ago and went all in on Bluesky. Took time to give feedback to the algo, but it's doing much better these days. I don't feel like I'm missing out on much, you'll get the same news & events on Bluesky. A lot of people who were scared of losing their following are reporting more, better engagement with lower follower counts.

What I really like about it is the ATProto, which while imperfect, seems like the best current design for the next gen of social media built on a federated foundation.

- DID for identity

- PDS for data mobility

- algo feed & moderation choice, you can build your own and anyone on Bluesky can use it (https://bsky.social/about/blog/03-12-2024-stackable-moderati...) If you didn't see, they recently added anti-toxicity features and are looking towards community notes

- Bluesky is the twitter like view, but you can build anything on ATProto and leverage the shared infra

I'm personally working on a "reddit" like view of the Bluesky network. Not a reddit clone, but a different way to organize the same information around topics, news events, and/or links. One could also design their own Lexicon and build something very close to reddit. One of the cool things is that all the objects for all apps are stored into a single SQLite database per user. So if you want to move your data to a different host, all of the apps, content, and connections survive that migration.

declan_roberts
15 replies
18h4m

Blueskey seems to have all of these neat features that developers/nerds seem to like, but literally nobody else cares about.

throwaway48476
5 replies
16h42m

A proper decentralized publishing platform would be content addressed not federated which retains all the downsides of centralization.

pfraze
4 replies
16h28m

The bluesky team worked previously on IPFS and Dat/Hypercore and Secure Scuttlebutt. Whyrusleeping - one of the core authors of IPFS - has been an active technical advisor from the start. ATProto is basically those p2p & content addressed techs moved into the server stack. None of us are bullish on client side p2p for large scale publishing or social applications, and we spent 10 years each doing that.

throwaway48476
2 replies
16h14m

P2P is hard, but that does not mean undesirable.

pfraze
0 replies
16h5m

Feel free to pick up where we left off, but just know that you're in for a lot of pain on key sync, device pairing, unreliable data availability, poor connection establishment latency, high end-user device resource usage, and very small data indexes which make it nearly impossible to produce even moderately-sized social networks.

kelnos
0 replies
9h12m

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. It's not just hard, but the user experience with it is just terrible. The masses will not use it. If the masses will not use something that requires network effects to be successful, there's no point. These problems may be solvable, but I think I'd trust the opinions of people who have worked on it for years and decided to do something else.

evbogue
0 replies
16h14m

One can authenticate message integrity on the client side and the server side, it doesn't have to be a trade-off. The same is true for encryption and decryption.

Retr0id
2 replies
17h21m

That's my favourite thing about it, really. It's very interesting at the technical level, but regular users simply do not need to care about any of that. They're adopting it anyway because it works.

Most other "interesting protocol" projects are used exclusively by interesting-protocol enthusiasts.

CleanRoomClub
1 replies
2h20m

Are regular users adopting it? I’d never even heard of BlueSky before this thread.

verdverm
0 replies
1h11m

Yes, lots of artists, teachers, econ, and NAFO. The British and Brazilians have had major influx over political spats with Musk

Major news orgs now have accounts too

verdverm
0 replies
17h59m

It's not that they don't care, it's more that they are used to centralized social media and unaware of even the possibility for a different paradigm.

I have seen them respond with intrigue and support once these things are explained.

segmondy
0 replies
2h14m

attractive developer/nerd features often seeds developers to develop for the platform which will end up attracting more users.

lxgr
0 replies
2h7m

Going with an email/calendar/contacts analogy:

Many non-nerds care about having their own TLD and corresponding email address, yet still use Gmail/GSuite, whether via their webapps or IMAP/CalDav/CardDav.

And arguably the most important thing keeping Google accountable for the quality of their products is the threat of users being able to move out on relatively short notice (i.e. without losing all of your historical inbox content and most importantly people being able to reach you via the identifier they know).

Bluesky seems closest to replicating that to the Twitter-like use case. (Mastodon is severely lacking on both portability of identifiers and portability of data across servers; there really needs to be a lightweight middle ground between self-hosting and complete reliance on somebody else's infrastructure).

diggan
0 replies
2h0m

Isn't that how most applications start, catering to some piece of the nerdery population? For Facebook, it was university nerds before it started to spread, Twitter just had some subsection of the nerds at first, Mastodon/ActivityPub goes after the decentralized/distributed nerds and Bluesky somewhere in the middle the two latter ones.

davidcbc
0 replies
2h17m

The thing other people care about is whether the platform has the people they want to follow on it.

bsky isn't there yet, but it's growing

alemanek
0 replies
3h5m

Well the normal folks will care when one of the nerds creates something personally useful to them. Then that becomes the killer feature that makes the platform sticky.

Will this happen? No clue but it is cool to see someone innovating in this space. Let’s see what people come up with.

energy123
9 replies
12h48m

I want a social network like X/BlueSky but it uses a community notes style algorithm to decide what content to show me instead of raw engagement. Should get rid of the trolls as Paul Graham wants to happen.

eterps
4 replies
10h50m

Can you expand on your thoughts a bit? Do you envision that a very large amount of posts get reviewed in a community notes style?

energy123
3 replies
9h43m

The algorithm would analyze the post's/user's likes. If a post/user is liked by people who often disagree, then boost the engagement of that post/user. If a post/user is liked by an echo chamber, then deboost it.

tliltocatl
2 replies
9h24m

What you describe is a flamewar maintenance algorithm. I mean, it COULD work if all people were sound and reasonable, but that's obviously not the case. And being a flamewar battleground is probably not the goal of most platform owners either. Also, for many topics that are not politics you don't need disagreement for a productive discussion.

energy123
1 replies
8h59m

I mean, it COULD work if all people were sound and reasonable, but that's obviously not the case.

But community notes works well. That's evidence that reasonableness emerges when you boost content that a diversity of people appreciate, regardless of whether people are sound and reasonable.

What you describe is a flamewar maintenance algorithm.

Are you saying my idea will increase flamewars? I believe it should decrease flamewars, and that's why I want to see it implemented. Again I point to community notes. If a diversity of people like content, it's probably level-headed, and that's why community notes works so well.

tliltocatl
0 replies
1h25m

Ok, now I get it, I got it wrong. Still questionable, but for other reason: niche content (like, retrocomputing or pet spider care or just about anything that's less agreeable than funny kittens) would never come thru.

Echo chambers aren't intrinsically bad, only when it's about politics and social issues - i. e. stuff that will affect everyone in the end.

nebula8804
1 replies
2h31m

What happens when Community Notes gets "gamed" like what supposedly happens sometimes on ...Community Notes?

One example can be that there is a mass attempt at pushing some viewpoint, it may not stick long term but it sticks for the duration of time the content is viewed by the most amount of people. Kind of like how upvote bots mess with Reddit.

verdverm
0 replies
1h9m

It will be built on the labeller tech aiui, so there can be many community notes providers and systems, with users deciding which they want to follow

verdverm
0 replies
2h19m

Anyone on the ATProto network can write such an algorithm and use it in the Bluesky app. They even have open source starter code on their github

Maken
0 replies
1h59m

Couldn't that be built over Mastodon?

supermatt
1 replies
1h39m

What I really like about it is the ATProto… DID, etc

Is the PLC DID (the one all bluesy accounts use) still hardcoded to a single centralised provider?

verdverm
0 replies
1h15m

I don't think so, you can now run your own PDS with a limited number of users. There was a comment on another recent Bluesky HN story where someone reported that they offer instructions for doing his at sign up, iirc

m3kw9
1 replies
17h21m

It also looks like Twitter but with none of the content

verdverm
0 replies
2h25m

(1) people bring content over through screenshots and mirror accounts

(2) There is plenty of equivalent content

gr__or
1 replies
10h9m

I was wondering these days if something like this could exist. Can one follow along somewhere?

verdverm
0 replies
2h21m

swap bsky for blebbit in the url bar

bananamerica
1 replies
3h17m

You know, sounds like a good idea. Going forward, maybe find a way to describe it that does not contain the word "Reddit". I actually like your idea but just because I read the word "Reddit" I kinda have a deep irrational bad vibe now? :P

kaladin-jasnah
0 replies
3h13m

Reddit can still be a great place to discuss hobbies and foment helpful and insightful discussion in my experience. While the platform has its flaws, I don't see it being wrong to try and replicate.

Adrian_Ferreira
27 replies
13h33m

I'm from Brazil and this judge is totally out of control. I agree that X needs to have a legal representative in Brazil, this is correct anywhere, but he threatened a fine of 200k and imprisonment to the person Musk appointed as representative if his stricture orders were not complied with. He threatened us to pay $9k in fines per day if we use VPN to access X. Unless you are part of the government base, it is difficult to find someone who approves of his actions.

hexage1814
11 replies
10h41m

but he threatened a fine of 200k and imprisonment to the person Musk appointed as representative if his stricture orders were not complied with

Moraes essentially wanted a hostage. Executives of companies shouldn't be arrested for things they have no power over, such as content moderation. My guess is that Moraes wanted to force Musk's company to not have a legal representative in the country, because the moment you know if you accept a job there's a high chance that job will result in you being arrested, those business men and women won't want that job. So Moraes clearly forced a situation that drove X out of the country.

If anything – it would still have been incredibly draconian and abusive from Moraes part – but it would have been “less bad” if the had skip the whole "arresting the legal representative" thing and had went straight to "block Twitter/X for not complying with his orders" part. But I guess Moraes really wanted to go for the "they didn't have a representative in Brazil, so we ban it" narrative.

Which by the way, this requirement, even if it's in the law, it surely not demanded from the vast majority of online companies that offer their service in Brazil. Otherwise they would have blocked Blue Sky as well, because (I assume) it doesn't have legal representatives in the country. So at best this law is being selectively enforced.

n_plus_1_acc
9 replies
9h43m

Executives have, by definition, cobtrol over everything inside their company.

kelnos
8 replies
9h20m

That's not even a little bit true. Even the CEO is at the mercy of their board, and their shareholders. Other CxO positions are subservient to the CEO. Often VPs are considered executives, and they certainly don't have control over everything inside their company.

If Twitter/X were to hire a rep in Brazil, regardless of the title they're given, that rep would have little to no power over the moderation choices of the parent company.

123pie123
4 replies
8h37m

Can you explain who has control over a company then?

FollowingTheDao
3 replies
8h16m

There is no one entity who has control. It is a combination of the CEO, shareholders, governments, employees, and the customers.

presentation
2 replies
4h59m

This is true, but following this logic you can’t hold anyone responsible for any negative externalities of their business since nobody can solely be in control. That’s not the world I want to encourage.

yazzku
1 replies
1h53m

"externalities" is precisely the kind of word used by those who evade responsibility.

ziml77
0 replies
1h7m

They would never use that word because it acknowledges that there are impacts that aren't accounted for in the costs to them.

flakeoil
1 replies
6h15m

In the US the CEO is often also the chairman of the board so they are accountable to themselves.

Which is kind of weird and illegal in many countries, but in the US it is almost the norm.

signatoremo
0 replies
2h41m

Define “often”. Did you know that Elon isn’t chairman of the board of Tesla?

Also no, chairman isn’t only accountable to themselves. Where did you read that? Investor having seats on board is so they can have a voice in the direction of the business.

Activists investors often try to have a minority stake and a board member so they can force changes at the company -[0]. A recent example is Elliott’s effort at Southwest Airlines -[1]

[0] - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/activist-investor.asp

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/elliott-b...

tfourb
0 replies
5h8m

That would be a choice, not a necessity.

Musk could choose to furnish the Brazil office of Twitter/X with the necessary resources to do content moderation to conform with local law. He chooses not to, with predictable consequences in terms of legal liability for any local representative.

amarcheschi
0 replies
9h10m

At the end of the day law will always be selectively enforced online since you literally cannot afford to pursue every single organization not compliant with the law. In fact, what happened with Twitter was something exceptional. Probably, many other organizations are breaking the same rule, but at the same time they're not as important as Twitter and it's not even worth prosecuting such cases

yokoprime
3 replies
8h10m

This is an excellent example of how statistics can be manipulated. Of course people don’t want to ban a service they use, but if the question had been “is it ok for foreign companies offering services to Brazilian citizens to ignore Brazilian law” the result would probably be different

onlyrealcuzzo
2 replies
4h31m

And it would further be a different result if the question was:

"Is it ok for foreign companies offering services to Brazilian citizens to ignore Brazilian law? Even if that company is Twitter and it means you lose access to Twitter?"

The average person does not really care about what's right or wrong or fair - just what's in their interest.

The average person cannot or does not think - "But what if a bunch of other companies were doing this thing? What if we had to treat them all fairly?"

That's why it's good when you have a legal system that at least attempts to be fair - instead of just populist and doing whatever people want.

lanstin
0 replies
2h26m

I know a fair number of people and most of them do visibly struggle with what is right or wrong at times. Cooperation is very much a mainstay of human behavior. Or of course some people believe that what is good is also in their own interest, long term and considering the effect posing what you believe is wrong has on your own self. They do things believing them to be good and also in their interests. But they certainly don't ignore what is good.

Green_Frog
0 replies
1h46m

His approval was 37% in March, before most of the worst controversies became known, including an humiliating whatsapp leak. Wouldn't be surprised if it were in the 20s or 10s now.

throwadobe
0 replies
2h43m

Irrelevant. Disagreeing on moral terms is not the same as deciding it has not followed the law and must face repercussions, which is what was decided here.

kelnos
0 replies
9h19m

I'm not sure what that proves, though. Even if the judge you mention was not totally out of control, and was actually applying the law properly and correctly (with the same outcome), I could very easily see a large number of people being all "no, not my Twitters, what am I going to do with my afternoons now?" without giving any critical thought to whether or not the law is being followed and if that's a problem.

dyauspitr
0 replies
13h21m

That’s a random sampling with a tiny group of people. You might as well do an internet poll on a very directed channel.

throwadobe
2 replies
2h44m

You can "be from Brazil" and still not understand the matter. Legal decisions are not a matter of "I agree" or "I disagree". They are a matter of law and facts.

How exactly was the judge's decision here not in accordance with the law?

I'm not "a part of the government base" and I happen to think this decision was lawful. Don't assume everyone who disagrees with you is doing so for political reasons. It would be too shallow to do so.

netbioserror
1 replies
1h50m

Laws are not de facto ethical or morally good on account of being laws.

throwadobe
0 replies
1h2m

I never said they were, but the judge isn't wrong for deciding on legality rather than morality.

jimbob45
2 replies
13h1m

Do you not have some sort of expedited appeals process in Brazil to short circuit maverick judges like this?

throwadobe
0 replies
2h42m

Please don't buy into the lazy narrative that this is a "maverick judge". That's an incorrect take that is fueled by political propaganda.

bobbruno
0 replies
8h58m

This is a Justice from the brazilian Supreme Court, they are the highest position in the court system, and allowed to make individual rulings and apply sanctions like this.

These decisions hold until ratified or rejected by the court as a whole (which they all eventually will, but it's not fast) or successfully appealed. Appeals can be made only to another Justice or to the court as a whole - no expedited process, because there's no higher authority.

Besides, who'd make the appeal? X has no representation in Brazil (that's why it's been suspended), and there seems to be consensus on that specific point, of legal representation being a requirement by law, so the general attorney or other officials will not question the main decision.

The side decisions are a different matter, that about VPN apps and app stores had been withdrawn. The fine for accessing X is more controversial: hardly enforceable (for just browsing, at least), ongoing hot debate in the country about it being within the Justice's power.

In fact, the Court will probably expedite a whole court judgement on that, and apparently there's no consensus across the Justices on that.

kevin_thibedeau
0 replies
3h24m

this is correct anywhere

So an internet service with global availability has to maintain staff for all 200-ish countries?

toomuchtodo
26 replies
19h39m

“Masterful gambit, sir.”

(X is facing a deep decline in revenue, cutting its valuation from $44B to ~$12B [Musk’s stake is worth ~$7B], and Musk makes a choice that drives millions of users to an alternate site: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitters-revenue-collapses-84...)

pqdbr
15 replies
19h21m

More power to him. He’s making the hard choices and paying a steep price for actually standing for free speech like no other big tech does.

xmprt
8 replies
19h10m

actually standing for free speech

I don't know how anyone can continue to claim this with a straight face when he sued advertisers for not continuing to advertise on the website.

WalterBright
7 replies
17h49m

"The lawsuit from his X platform against the non-profit advertising initiative GARM has led to its dissolution. A major ad industry group is shutting down, days after Elon Musk-owned X filed a lawsuit that claimed the group illegally conspired to boycott advertising on his platform." -- Google

I.e. Musk did not sue the advertisers.

WalterBright
5 replies
16h4m

Yes, he sued not only the cartel organization, but its members. That seems only reasonable, as he sued them for violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Do you think the Sherman Act is an unreasonable limitation on the free market?

threeseed
3 replies
13h28m

So he did sue the advertisers.

And unless Musk has some extraordinary evidence it will be difficult to provide those advertisers colluded together to better themselves at the expense of other market participants. Especially when they aren't even in the same markets.

Also if you think this situation is akin to a cartel god knows what you think of IMDB or the Michelin guide.

WalterBright
2 replies
12h39m

The linked documents describe the cartel and how it violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. It's not a difficult read.

kelnos
1 replies
8h59m

Musk's lawyers "describing" something isn't evidence.

Given Musk's personality, I would not be the tiniest bit surprised if he's suing without any actual evidence, just because he's angry and because he can.

I mean, remember, this is the guy who tried to get out of buying Twitter, and then refused to pay out contractually-obligated packages to many of the former management team he fired. (I'm not the biggest fan in the world of golden parachutes, but this was pretty egregious.)

WalterBright
0 replies
1h24m

Sorry, but I'm saddened by about how far people are willing to go to dislike Musk.

As far as I am concerned, his contributions to the US, society, and the future via Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, etc., dwarf his various foibles.

P.S. if the pay packages were contractually obligated, then the courts would have forced him to pay them. Courts are generally pretty biased in favor of employees when they sue their employer.

P.P.S if his case has no merit, the advertisers are hardly unable to defend themselves, they are huge corporations. You don't need to feel sorry for them.

eadler
0 replies
15h50m

I only specifically responded to the claim that the advertisers were not a party to the lawsuit.

I make no claim as to the nature of claim, the appropriateness of the Sherman act, or if the claims will fail as a matter of law or fact (or neither). I am not a lawyer and am especially clueless on the topic of antitrust law.

I did however, incidentally, see this recently which may be of interest on the topic:

https://verdict.justia.com/2024/08/26/why-elon-musks-and-xs-...

sapphicsnail
2 replies
17h41m

Doesn't he punish accounts that use the words cis and cisgender? I don't really understand how anyone can argue he's a free speech advocate in 2024.

myko
0 replies
17h13m

that's hate speech (speech Elon hates) though, he only wants to protect speech he likes

darthrupert
0 replies
3h0m

I think that was a joke trying to play with the dumb idea where using certain words makes you deserve punishment.

nova22033
0 replies
16h29m

ah..yes..he's making the hard choices

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/modi-twitter-bbc-m...

“It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things,” he added, referring to the multiple companies where he is CEO.

chasing
0 replies
2h34m

Hahahaha! He’s absolutely not standing for free speech and anyone still thinking that needs to spend a few minutes actually poking around Twitter (and maybe a few minutes deconstructing what “freedom of speech” actually means). It’s a playground to promote speech he likes. And he’s a right-wing rich guy bigot whose primary mode of “argument” is either trolling or attempting to financially destroy people he disagrees with.

Concerning.

anderber
0 replies
19h9m

I think you missed adding the "/s" at the end of your sentence. I can only imagine you're kidding.

supafastcoder
9 replies
17h33m

I strongly believe the potential valuation and financial performance was not the primary motivation for Musk to buy Twitter, it’s simply a toy for a man worth $200+ billion.

toomuchtodo
4 replies
17h19m

I agree, but if he valued the soft power, wouldn't you expect to him to take the survival of the platform more seriously? Or maybe it's all for the lulz and I am just a dumb peasant. Certainly, to hell with the valuation if you're going to run it as your own personal forum, but if you scare all the users and revenue away, you are left with a very expensive CRUD system you alone are posting into (and paying billions of dollars for the privilege).

wmf
3 replies
15h39m

Maybe Twitter will become more popular and influential now that it's banned. It could be the place to find out what the government doesn't want you to know.

thaumasiotes
2 replies
13h42m

Back in 2020, an acquaintance of mine started ranting to me about covid when I wished her a happy Chinese new year. She was at pains to point out that she got her information from unofficial sources.

UberFly
1 replies
11h56m

This makes very little sense.

thaumasiotes
0 replies
1h38m

It's a demonstration by example of exactly the effect described in my parent comment. What part of it didn't make sense?

kelnos
3 replies
9h3m

Oh, true. But the problem is that Musk, rich has he is, can't run Twitter indefinitely without revenue (more than he's getting today, and it's likely declining). He needs it to perform financially if it's to continue to be a going concern.

somenameforme
2 replies
2h42m

He's going the other route - lower costs. He got rid of the overwhelming majority of staff, moved (or is moving?) the HQ out of San Francisco and California - meaning lower costs + lower tax, and so on. So while revenue has decreased, so have costs. In later 2023 he stated that it was expected for Twitter to be profitable early in 2024. Given there was no follow up announcement I doubt this goal was achieved, but it does suggest that it's probably quite close to being in the black. And that's quite good for a company which was only made profit 2 years in its entire existence.

xenospn
0 replies
2h30m

Musk expects many things. Very few come true.

mplewis
0 replies
7m

And you believe him? The guy who took out loans to finance the purchase of the company, which drain the company of $1.5 billion a year? I’ve got some oceanside property to sell you.

dont_forget_me
26 replies
1d3h

It saddens me the Brasil banned X because of racism, anti-semitism and hate-speech. But X is still not banned in the west.

At some point we have to come to this realization in the west that absolutism is never the answer. Free speech is good upto certain extent, the way it was at Twitter before the rich and powerful took over. Moreover, it is content moderation and it doesn't have anything to do with free speech.

matheusmoreira
7 replies
1d1h

It was not banned for racism, antisemitism and hate speech. It was banned for "fake news". As determined by our very own Ministry of Truth. Which is literally headed by the judge-king responsible for this circus. These guys are what happens when xkcd/386 acquires god-king powers.

If I were to follow the same logic as these judges, I would call for your comment to be deleted and for your account to be suspended. After all, you committed the crime of spreading "disinformation" and "misinformation". You were wrong on the internet.

Rejoice, for I do not agree with their logic. You can be wrong on the internet all you want, and I will not call for your censorship. For I believe that is a fundamentally immoral thing to do.

matheusmoreira
3 replies
14h31m

I mean people's speech. Whether their speech is "fake" or not is up to me to determine. I don't want any ministries of truth determining that for me. Especially not one manned by these partisan judges.

And "this" as in a protest? Like countless others before? Whatever. You're not gonna call it a coup, right? Even the Wikipedia article you cited doesn't call it one.

croes
2 replies
11h24m

The don't call it protest either.

They call it attack and invasion.

The reason why it isn't called a coup is be cause they failed.

And it's not the ministry of truth but multiple independent sources in and outside Brazil.

At a certain point something is obviously fake. And if it's spreading violence it reached the limit of free speech.

matheusmoreira
1 replies
2h33m

attack and invasion

Aren't all protests? I don't remember many protests that didn't involve closing down roads, burning things down and whatnot. Protests that don't do things like that are usually so irrelevant they don't get Wikipedia articles written about them.

The reason why it isn't called a coup is be cause they failed.

It's not called a coup because it wasn't one. A coup attempt would be the military seizing power by force. You know, the people with guns and tanks. A successful coup would be the military trying and succeeding.

There's simply no way you can claim a bunch of people, many of them elderly, equipped with bibles and flags, amounts to a coup attempt.

And it's not the ministry of truth but multiple independent sources in and outside Brazil.

None of which have the power to censor anything. As it should be.

At a certain point something is obviously fake.

If it's so obviously fake, then you don't need any censorship either. The fakeness will be self-evident.

croes
0 replies
16m

Aren't all protests? I don't remember many protests that didn't involve closing down roads, burning things down and whatnot. Protests that don't do things like that are usually so irrelevant they don't get Wikipedia articles written about them.

Most protests are peaceful and even the violent one rarely invade government buildings. Whole different level.

It's not called a coup because it wasn't one. A coup attempt would be the military seizing power by force. You know, the people with guns and tanks. A successful coup would be the military trying and succeeding.

It doesn't have to be the military. Most coups are by the military but it's not a necessity

There's simply no way you can claim a bunch of people, many of them elderly, equipped with bibles and flags, amounts to a coup attempt.

No, but for a bunch of people who throw pickaxes and hammers at the police I can.

None of which have the power to censor anything. As it should be.

That's the road to tyranny. Lies spread faster than the truth.

If it's so obviously fake, then you don't need any censorship either. The fakeness will be self-evident.

Sadly some people fall for obvious fakes. Just look at all the flat earthers.

chipdart
1 replies
1d1h

It was not banned for racism, antisemitism and hate speech. It was banned for "fake news".

Not even that. Brasil requires media companies to appoint legal representatives to handle complains of illegal activity, and instead of complying with the law Elon Musk opted to pull the company out of Brasil.

The funny thing about this shit show was that Twitter's legal representatives were actually complying with the law, but Elon Musk himself was contradicting and undercutting Twitter's representatives in Brasil. Until he simply pulled out of the company from the country, as if that was some kind of legal gotcha. Except that Brasil doesn't fuck around and it's legislation recognizes that there are always real flesh-and-bone people behind corporate structures, this the judge applying the legal consequences of Elon Musk's decisions to Elon Musk's property in Brasil such as Starlink.

hexage1814
0 replies
1d

Brasil requires media companies to appoint legal representatives to handle complains of illegal activity

If that was the case all millions of sites that operate in Brazil, without having legal representatives in the country, would have to be blocked, which doesn't happen. The truth here is that this Supreme Court "judge", which is more like a de facto dictator at this point, wanted essentially a hostage. Someone who he could jailed to blackmail Musk – as Moraes threaten to do with the previous representative, which was the reason for why Musk shutdown X operation in the country . It's that simple. Them going after Starlink, a totally different legal entity with different investors only proves this mafia-like style and how much of banana republic the whole country became, with zero legal certainty.

You are talking about something you really don't understand, such was what is happening in the country. Nobody outside Brazil is taking the decisions of this judge serious. Not even Interpol, which denied countless Red Notice alerts that this "judge" tried to issue, such as when he tried (and failed) to go after exiled journalist Allan dos Santos living in the USA and Oswaldo Eustáquio living in Spain.

https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2021/11/interpol-segura-...

https://revistaoeste.com/brasil/pf-nao-inclui-oswaldo-eustaq...

Again, you are really talking about something you have absolutely no idea.

diogocp
5 replies
1d3h

Free speech is good upto certain extent

Up to the extent that you agree with it?

timeon
0 replies
1d3h

That seems to be current model for Twitter.

throwadobe
0 replies
17h0m

Up to the extent it doesn't infringe on other people's rights, according to the Brazilian constitution, including the right not to be discriminated against.

croes
0 replies
18h6m

When you want to overthrow the government and a military coup d'état because you don't like the election outcome.

chomp
0 replies
1d2h

Works for free speech absolutist Elon Musk?

chipdart
0 replies
1d1h

Up to the extent that you agree with it?

That's the norm in Elon Musk's Twitter. Since his takeover, content like white supremacy, antisemitism, and industrial state-level propaganda operations from fascist and totalitarian regimes is perfectly ok to publish on that platform. Criticism of Elon Musk or fascist regimes, however, is completely different.

Elon Musk's Twitter was also caught hardcoding censorship and throttling of both pro-Ukraine discussions and users who published pro-Ukraine content. Russian bots however have free reign.

More importantly, Elon Musk's Twitter is finding itself in trouble in Brasil not because of censorship, but because Elon Musk made it his point to go to great extents to avoid even appointing a legal representative to handle complains of illegal activity. This isn't even about censorship, but complying with basic legal requirements. It's like bitching that having to pay taxes is persecuting based on free speech just because you refuse to even file a form.

chipdart
5 replies
1d1h

It saddens me the Brasil banned X because of racism, anti-semitism and hate-speech. But X is still not banned in the west.

From what I've read, that was not exactly what's happening with Elon Musk's Twitter in Brasil.

From what I've gathered, Brasil informed Elon Musk's Twitter that in order to comply with Brasil's law regarding disinformation, libel, and propaganda, they had to appoint a legal representative to be contacted by Brasil's judicial system to address reports of illegal activity. In response, Elon Musk basically ordered Twitter to dissolve all of its corporate presence in Brasil to retaliate against the demand, thinking that without a legal presence in the country that Twitter would magically become immune to Brasil's jurisdiction.

Except that Brasil's judicial system does have some tools and the means to prosecute uncooperative entities, particularly private individuals who hide behind corporate structures. Consequently, Brasil not only blocked Elon Musk's Twitter from Brasil due to Elon Musk's purposely uncooperative attitude but also has the legal means to go after the private individuals behind the decision to antagonize Brasil. Consequently, they enforced the consequences of Elon Musk's actions to Elon Musk's property in Brasil, such as Starlink.

Overall, this case is only orthogonally related to free speech. At it's core there's only one thing: Elon Musk making ill-advised decisions (reportedly against legal advise from his own legal representatives and in opposition to the actions of his legal representatives) and is now fabricating stories to distract people from the fact that all he is experiencing is the consequences of his own actions, which would be extremely easily avoided if he just listened to his own lawyers.

d0100
2 replies
17h31m

You are ignoring the lead-up to this situation, where the judge is overwriting the law because he and his peers decided they are above it because they are the Supreme justices

chipdart
0 replies
8h1m

You are ignoring the lead-up to this situation, (...)

I am not ignoring anything. The fact is that Brasil has laws to fight disinformation and libel, and those laws are being enforced.

Your personal opinion also glances over the fact that Brasil was recently subjected to a coup attempt to drive the country into a fascist dictatorship, heavily pushed by a massive disinformation campaign in social media services like Elon Musk's Twitter.

What you are trying to glance over is the fact that none of this issue is related to free speech. Elon Musk tried to avoid complying with a nation's laws with a ill-advised stunt of pulling Twitter's corporate presence from Brasil. As expected from any jurisdiction in the world, not cooperating with the judicial system bears consequences.

To drive the point home, I stress the fact that Elon Musk did far worse to support fascist and authoritarian dictatorships attacking free speech, such as his support for Erdogan's regime censoring opposition and non-supoortive posts during the last sham elections. For that, Elon Musk's reaction was claiming that either some messages were boosted or all of them were boosted, and he claimed it's better to have some (only supporting a dictator) than none. But for Brasil, the need to appoint a mere legal representative to process requests was now deemed too much? And enough to pull a dying company from a +200M market? It doesn't pass the smell test.

a_victorp
0 replies
8h9m

Where did you get these "facts"? From Elon's tweets?

WrongAssumption
1 replies
13h27m

“It closed its office in Brazil earlier this month, saying its representative had been threatened with arrest if she did not comply with orders it described as "censorship" - as well as illegal under Brazilian law.

Justice Moraes had ordered that X accounts accused of spreading disinformation - many supporters of the former right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro - must be blocked while they are under investigation.

He said the company's legal representatives would be held liable if any accounts were reactivated.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y3rnl5qv3o.amp

They wanted Musk to appoint a legal representative so they could throw them in jail.

a_victorp
0 replies
8h3m

They wanted him to appoint a representative so it could represent the company (and be held liable, in case the company does anything illegal) as mandates Brazilian law. As soon as Elon decided to not have a representative, Twitter's operation in Brazil became Illegal

Other companies, such as Telegram, also have faced the same and they simply appointed a representative. If you research you'll see that no representative has been jailed, so this whole "they would have jailed the representative" narrative is bs

Gud
2 replies
1d1h

You can’t be so naive that you think this has anything to do with the reasons you listed.

The government in Brazil does not like X because users are critizing the government.

Unfortunately Brazil is barely a democracy and it’s infested with little potentates.

chipdart
0 replies
1d1h

The government in Brazil does not like X because users are critizing the government.

This baseless personal assertion does not pass the smell test. I'm going to explain to you why.

Elon Musk's Twitter is happily censoring opposition of totalitarian dictatorships such as Turkey's Erdogan regime, and the only remark that Elon Musk published regarding censoring Turk opposition parties is that Elon Musk's Twitter would risk being removed from Turkey. Elon Musk, when he caved to Erdogan's demands to censor his opposition, famously said

“Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors...

So for Turkey's totalitarian dictatorship Elon Musk finds it acceptable to censor opposition by arguing bullshit like "either we show some content or no content", but for Brasil's democratic regime, which barely managed to fend off a fascist military coup, when they request Elon Musk's Twitter to appoint a legal representative to handle requests... That's suddenly unacceptable?

Bullshit.

chucke1992
1 replies
1d1h

Free speech is good upto certain extent

Until you own speech is banned right? We are the "good ones" after all.

mensetmanusman
0 replies
16h12m

We would have to ban the iPhone then.

nickpsecurity
22 replies
1d3h

One of the linked articles said it boiled down to X being ordered to censor political opponents of those in power. They chose not to. I’m glad.

Now, traffic is going to Bluesky. I wonder if this means that Bluesky has or will be offered the same choice. We might see what the character of that organization is by what choice they make.

throwadobe
9 replies
14h59m

It boiled down to X not taking down accounts associated with individuals with outstanding warrants who were inciting violence. Brazilian law requires X to do so.

macinjosh
1 replies
12h51m

Seems like the repercussions are mainly on Brazilian citizens who cannot access free and open information.

throwadobe
0 replies
5h12m

Factually incorrect. Plenty of free and open information in other networks in Brazil and through its free press.

insane_dreamer
3 replies
1h37m

The problem with Elon is that he's decided to pick and choose which countries he will comply with local legislation on, and which ones he won't. So India, Turkey, he did. Brazil, he didn't.

Maybe the Supreme Court in Brazil is "wrong" and "corrupt" where legislators in India and Turkey are not, but knowing a fair bit about all three countries, I doubt very much that to be the case. So then it's a business decision -- or more like a "whatever pisses Elon off" decision, which in the end is just as "corrupt" as your typical corrupt dictator who acts on whatever pisses them off.

blackeyeblitzar
2 replies
1h10m

It’s a question of what is legal in each country. The censorship orders in Australia and India and Turkey complied with local laws so X stuck to their policy of following them. I detest censoring and authoritarianism in general, but X has publicly stated their policy is to comply with laws in each area.

One thing I’ll mention: after Musk acquired X in 2022, they were engaged in a lawsuit against the government of India in 2023 to fight censorship orders, that they ultimately lost (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-66083645). Not that it matters because India ended up passing various regulations (legally) that give their agencies various powers to censor.

Note that in Brazil, no new legislation or constitutional amendment was passed that would give this one Supreme Court justice this power to censor, ban, or arrest. Also note that the orders aren’t from the Supreme Court but one person sitting on it, Alexandre de Moraes.

throwadobe
0 replies
1h1m

Stop spewing this nonsense. Moraes has the power to decide on this matter and the court will review his decision collectively in due time. You're spreading misinformation nonstop in this thread.

Making the extraordinary claim that a Supreme Court judge doesn't have the power to make some decision they've made requires extraordinary evidence. How do you plan substantiate that claim? Where in the Brazilian Constitution or in any of its laws do you see something that supports that view?

Arguing that this is a political move doesn't even make sense. How does banning X help Lula?

You're just buying into the vitriolic, malicious, bot-fed rhetoric that anything that happens is the fault of the "deep state" embedded in PT which is actually just a lazy translation from the MAGA playbook which makes no sense in the US and makes even less sense in Brazil. Stop it, get some help. You're hurting both countries.

insane_dreamer
0 replies
1h0m

Moraes was granted that authority by the Supreme Court, so it is legal. Whether it's right or wrong is a different question, but Moraes' actions are not "illegal".

Moraes does seem to be acting like an unaccountable little dictator in his fiefdom, which is dangerous. But then again Elon acts like an unaccountable little dictator in his fiefdom, which is also dangerous, so I don't really mind that X is getting banned. I'd feel completely differently if it were Mastodon or even some other commercial network over which a single person doesn't have an iron grip.

UberFly
0 replies
11h53m

X not taking down accounts associated with individuals with outstanding warrants who were inciting violence

God this sounds so 1984-ish.

esharte
3 replies
1d3h

Did you miss the whole part where these "policial opponents" attempted a coup against the democratically elected president?

tourmalinetaco
2 replies
1d3h

Everyone has a right to speech, even those you disagree with politically.

jazzyjackson
1 replies
18h29m

I guess the assertion above is that they were not banned for mere speech?

pessimizer
0 replies
17h50m

I don't think it is. I think the assertion is that people who have been accused of supporting something that has been seen as a coup by supporters of the administration should have their speech banned, anyone who helps them speak should be arrested, and anyone who listens to them speak should be fined $10,000 per violation.

bsnsxd
3 replies
1d

"censor political opponents" is the most intellectually dishonest take, and in it lies the whole root of the discussion. Said opponents' accounts were asked to be shut down, not because they are opponents, but because they were being used to commit crimes against the electoral justice. The Supreme Court is a lifetime seat meant to not be caught in bi-yearly electoral politics, so it can oversee it, this current judge was the appointed by draw the judge of the whole "fake news inquiry", like every thing at the supreme court, he was also the elected president of the Supreme Court at the time of the previous elections (he was elected president by his colleagues in the supreme court). If the president at the time, or the drawn judge, was to be pro-coup, then we wouldn't have this whole debacle and elon musk would probably be CEO of Brazil at this moment. Since elon musk became owner of Twitter, brazillian court has struggled significantly more to obtain data from criminal accounts (a famous example being hate speech accounts that were not shut down, nor "doxxed" to the court, since according to twitter the hate speech didn't break TOS), to a point where it became impossible, so the court had to act, this situation has been boiling for a few years with Elon trying to strongarm his will in the country, he raised the bets, STF's called his bluff.

gruez
1 replies
16h58m

Said opponents' accounts were asked to be shut down, not because they are opponents, but because they were being used to commit crimes against the electoral justice.

What are the "crimes" they're being accused of? Getting the opposition locked for "crimes" is basically authoritarianism 101. See: Venezuela[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...

matheusmoreira
0 replies
13h23m

Crimes like calling the current president a condemned criminal. Which he once was. I watched them arrest him, and I watched multiple judges condemn him. Then these judges erased his crimes due to some technicality and made him innocent again, and we're all supposed to just magically unring the bells and wash our memories of these facts, or be censored.

Crimes like calling the current president a friend of dictators. Which he is. This guy rolled out the red carpet for the Venezuelan dictator months after he was elected. He also defended his recent "reelection".

Crimes like calling the current president a communist/socialist. Which he is. He literally calls himself one. I even have videos.

It's all "fake news" according to the judges.

mensetmanusman
0 replies
16h15m

It’s a crime to dishonor corrupt judges though… so it’s morally okay to not follow that law.

katbyte
2 replies
1d3h

Elon musk was happy to allow government “censorship” it turkey India and other countries where it aligned with his views.

nickpsecurity
1 replies
1d

I was commenting strictly on what’s in the articles’ links. If he did that, it would be just as deplorable as the censorship they were claiming to oppose.

fjkdlsjflkds
0 replies
42m

If he did that, it would be just as deplorable [...]

No need for hypotheticals. He did do that (this is an easily-verifiable fact [1][2][3]).

[...] the censorship they were claiming to oppose.

The thing is that this is clearly an empty claim, when Musk has no problems either complying with similar censoring orders from right-wing governments (Modi, Erdogan) or with arbitrarily censoring people for using medically-approved terms (like "cis" or "cisgender") that he simply does not like [4][5].

All of this censorship by Twitter is (legally) 100% within their right to do, as a private entity, but then whatever claims he (or Twitter) has of being a "defender of free speech" ring a bit hollow.

Given these things, the more plausible explanation for Musk's actions is not that he wants to defend free speech (or that he is fundamentally against censorship), but simply that the request comes from a (left-wing) government that is not ideologically aligned with his views.

It's a choice. But choices have consequences.

[1] https://slate.com/technology/2023/05/elon-musk-turkey-twitte...

[2] https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/world/2024/04...

[3] https://theintercept.com/2023/03/28/twitter-modi-india-punja...

[4] https://www.advocate.com/news/cisgender-restriction-x-twitte...

[5] https://nitter.poast.org/elonmusk/status/1719077000483066319...

avsteele
0 replies
1h38m

At this point, I'm only mildly surprised by the pro-censorship sentiments which are prevalent here at HN. Still, for those with an open mind...

Read the NY times article; it is not amazing well done but serves to show how unaccountable the orders of the judge are.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/31/world/americas/brazil-x-b...

Then read the orders from the judge (as claimed by X). "Secretly ban this sitting senator within a few hours"

https://x.com/AlexandreFiles/status/1829979981130416479/phot...

Laaas
22 replies
1d3h

They will ban Bluesky too if it gets too popular .

stevebmark
13 replies
1d1h

AT Protocol aggregators (“relays”) can choose their own content moderation policies. It’s possible that if there are multiple relays, and one of them doesn’t block violent / hate speech, the government would ban that relay and corresponding domain, and others could continue to thrive.

verdverm
12 replies
21h12m

ATProto actually separates moderation from PDS or App View. Users can choose which labellers they prefer and can even combine them, separate from where they host their data or the UI they choose to use.

https://bsky.social/about/blog/03-12-2024-stackable-moderati...

They do the same for feeds, 4 core components, with user choice and interoperability for each

jazzyjackson
11 replies
18h32m

So what levers does that give governments seeking to get compliance out of an internet service - if multiple apps are hosting anti-party propaganda the government has to block the domains of each app ?

Or, perhaps the domains of the content itself is blocked so apps continue to work but fail to load content within certain borders ?

verdverm
4 replies
18h12m

apps don't host data, PDS (personal data servers) do

apps implement views on that data, and may or may not follow the rules, of gov't or users. For example, even though you can block a user, detach a quote post, or hide comments, apps have to implement this behavior, and nothing stops a person from finding that relation.

ATProto is federated, not centralized, and not something gov'ts and regulations have thought thoroughly about. Also, with DID, I believe DNS blocking will be hard because I can change the name and still get to the same content

jazzyjackson
3 replies
17h2m

not something gov'ts and regulations have thought thoroughly about

Not trying to be combative but I find this mode of thinking is likely to backfire, governments don't have to think they can just act - has bsky thought seriously about what their response will be to the same laws that X is suffering from?

verdverm
2 replies
16h2m

Users have choice over moderation, it's not necessarily something Bluesky can limit, by design.

It's also worth seeing how it plays out with others, while you are still not on the radar. Part of the reason Xitter is getting harsher treatment is because Musk antagonized. That's not the best way to negotiate, especially since he said he'd abide by local rules, like how he said he'd be better for free speech.

AlienRobot
1 replies
2h19m

I'm not sure I understand. Are you trying to say if a judge says "you must stop displaying this content" Bluesky will argue "we can't do that"?

I think Bluesky would get banned.

verdverm
0 replies
2h13m

Bluesky could implement it in their moderation service, but that does not mean users in Brazil would be impacted by it.

Users could swap moderation service or swap interfaces

The one thing that could happen is the PDS deleting the record for everyone, everywhere

One thing to separate is Bluesky from ATProto. Bluesky is the default implementation of the 4 core pieces, but one could use alternatives for all of them as well and still have their content show up in the bsky app. Imagine if Twitter was open source and federated

numpad0
3 replies
13h45m

Bluesky's whole moderation and decentralization setups were only devised, or at least implemented, after it blew up in Japan and bunch of Japanese artists immediately started hammering the platform with novel content they consider to be lawful and more kosher than normal but were officially felt platform threatening to their team.

So, not to undermine efforts from Bluesky team - I applaud their SoTA attempt at microblogging architecture and platform so far - but Bluesky definitely has not solved the messy question of legality, ethics, and speech, at theoretical levels. Only hypothetical and/or operational.

jazzyjackson
2 replies
12h59m

I can only imagine what this refers to but after googling for a few minutes for "bluesky japan controversy" I'm just going to let this exchange color my impression of what's going on at bluesky:

Deleted Post

> Katie Tightpussy: BLACKTHORNE: We are a moderation service for Bluesky with the goal of improving social media for progressive queer folks and leftists who wholeheartedly enjoy Japanese anime, manga, games, hentai, fan art, and doujin.

MARIKO: The Anjin incorrectly believes that he is an expert on Japanese culture.

>> Sign in Required

>> Sign in Required

>> Yep, the "controversial fiction" thing is such a sad (yet hilarous) cop-out. They KNOW it's wrong so they employ this linguistic obfuscation to try and make people think they aren't pedos.

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:hslv64eax7d2lwrm7qtg44ud/po...

numpad0
1 replies
5h45m

yeaaaahhh, it can't get more appropriate than to frame this problem with an image of an angry short ethnic woman in front of a tall white male guardian, right... and it's totally fine that no one in said ethnicity interacts with that post over there, right...? At that point you might as well include topics like mercury content in Asian seaweeds and arsenic in rice... duh.

The reason why you aren't finding anything specific to Bluesky is because it's not a Bluesky specific problem. Every social media that goes big in Japan will have this Japanese pedo flood problem, if you prefer it expressed in that kind of vocabularies. Social media that do not experience this stays irrelevant in Japan, for better or worse(frankly said likely better for profitability).

It happens as a spontaneous flood of 50:50 mix tangentially labeled pedo:nonpedo mixed content stream consuming non-negligible bandwidth, increasing in volume exponentially until Japanese fraction reaches steady state of >50% by content, ~30% by user count, and >50% of top popular accounts. The mixture and fraction metrics show indefinite steady up trend.

Gargron, the Mastodon author and benevolent dictator of the Fediverse, famously gave up and went on to basically race filter Japanese from the European half of the system, which by the way I have no choice but to fully respect given his circumstances, options available, and value to be recovered. Twitter famously deleted trust and safety team, and according to Elon Musk himself with his tongue in cheek, Twitter usage in Japan is "growing", amid its worsening Indo-Arabic spam problem and tanking global popularity. Even literal pornography websites like PornHub had this exact problem, in whose case they were forced to nuke the website to get rid of so-called JAVs using unverified CP as an excuse(lots of JAVs feature easily CP frameable females). And Bluesky created the whole moderation framework and default enforced implementation in response to it.

Anyway, what I'm saying is just, only, Bluesky's whole moderation framework is a post hoc solution to this problem, so while strong resistance against oppressive evil radical totalitarian governments sure is considered as one of ultimate goals, it's definitely not the goal in their initial problem definition.

pfraze
0 replies
3h40m

Your broader observations match what I generally know, but the moderation system wasn’t created as a reaction to Japan or any other specific set of circumstances we were facing. It was a system we had been developing since before launch and was designed to resolve the tensions of different perspectives in what’s acceptable

stale2002
1 replies
2h18m

The answer is that the government won't have many levels to pull to censor content on the internet.

I think that people are are celebrating the ban of X, and moving to decentralized platforms, forgot that the whole point of decentralization is to make censorship difficult.

When you move to bluesky, you just support an even more free version of twitter.

verdverm
0 replies
1h6m

Freer from both govt and corporate controls

Feed (algo) and moderation services are choices at the individual user level

slashdave
2 replies
17h31m

Not so sure. I mean, as long as Bluesky doesn't just simply ignore a judge. Also, there has been some backlash.

extheat
1 replies
11h21m

Bluesky isn’t a centralized service, the developers cannot themselves comply with judicial orders (any of them).

nunobrito
0 replies
9h21m

It is centralized. Just block the app and domain, down it goes.

Very different when compared to NOSTR, where are a variety of domains and apps keep popping up everywhere around the globe.

insane_dreamer
2 replies
1h51m

Based on what evidence?

IG, FB, WhatsApp, etc are all still running in Brazil last I checked.

blackeyeblitzar
1 replies
1h24m

They previously banned Telegram, and might come for these other services next. But selective enforcement is also part of how injustices are performed in authoritarian regimes. Note that most websites and businesses on the Internet don’t need to have a local representative in Brazil, for example, though the Supreme Court justice here demanded Twitter have one (just so he could jail the person like an act of theater). The aggressiveness against Twitter/X could just be a strategy to compel other companies to quietly censor in behalf of the current administration, even if it would be illegal for them to comply.

rescbr
0 replies
32m

Twitter/X has a local entity set up in Sao Paulo.

The previous administrator was removed and another wasn't appointed, running foul from the societal laws.

Telegram doesn’t have a local entity and complies with Brazilian law, which is the only thing that is required. There is absolutely no need for local representation of foreign entities in Brazilian law.

Twitter having a local office is simply a commercial decision - easier to conduct business, better relationships with customers, local tax vs duty over importation of services etc.

alphabettsy
1 replies
1d2h

It’s not as easy to ban.

new_user_final
0 replies
23h17m

x.com is also not easy to ban. vpn are always to use but you will be fined by the government if they can identify you. same goes for any other platform that are not "easy to ban".

slowhadoken
16 replies
15h13m

I’m glad I don’t live in Brazil. Why ban X? It makes no sense.

threeseed
9 replies
13h27m

Because X is not complying with the law in that country.

Whether the law is right or not is irrelevant. You either comply or leave.

slowhadoken
5 replies
13h24m

Wow sounds totalitarian. Maybe it’s for the best that Musk disassociates with Brazil.

threeseed
1 replies
12h20m

The foundation of any society are rules.

So unless you think every society is totalitarian your point makes no sense.

yazzku
0 replies
1h56m

The dictatorship of those who think differently than I do.

kelseyfrog
0 replies
12h6m

Usually folks conceive of the continuum like so

Rule of Law >-------------< Complete Corruption

How do you think about it?

enaaem
0 replies
2h57m

If they just had more oil, then US could bring them democracy.

Ylpertnodi
0 replies
11h8m

Where do you live that you don't follow laws (, rules, and norms), and so isn't 'totalitarian'? Must be great.

Green_Frog
2 replies
2h12m

Brazilian here. We don't have rule of law here anymore. It's a covert dictatorship run at the front end by one judge, Alexandre de Moraes, and a small group of collaborators. He interprets the law however he wants or just outright ignores it in favor of ad hoc absurd interpretations, and there is no one left to judge the "supreme" judge. He effectively figures as accuser, defendant and judge in his own cases, which he of course rules in his own favor, establishes new executive agencies with no legal basis, threatens any deputy or senator that dares criticise him with incarceration, bankruptcy, or social social media banning, with no due trial or legal basis, and in absolute legal secrecy, which should be illegal by itself, but so it goes.

Not even 10% of his insanity arrives untouched by editorialization in the Northern Hemisphere, you're being fed a polished, low bandwidth version of our affairs here, mostly because Brazil isn't a key enough global player for anyone to care, but also out of typical political bias. Glenn Greenwald has been attempting to bridge that gap, and has done as good of a job as possible so far.

The checks and balances in our jurisdiction are sufficiently tenuous that, with a relatively small group of people in key positions of power, you can gate-keep any viable democratic venues for impeaching him. A new profile on X called "Alexandre Files" is beginning to post his unlawful rulings.

His approval was 37% in March of this year, when most of the centrists were still openly with him, and most of the recent major scandals hadn't come into full play yet. Now that even the moderate part of the left is denouncing the blatant illegalities on his part, moreover after a leak of his whatsapp group, it wouldn't surprise me to be in the low 20s or even 10s now. Even major national left-wing publications are coming against him now, and I believe it's a matter of time before international media catches up.

He essentially used Bolsonaro supporter's rebellion as an excuse to impose a dictatorship of the judiciary in the name of "saving democracy". Those people indeed had to be judged for the crime of violating public property, but being unarmed, it's impossible to characterize a coup. This whole thing is a circus.

yazzku
0 replies
1h57m

I've read Greenwald's "Securing Democracy". Is that still an accurate picture of Brazilian politics from your point of view?

lasknb
0 replies
1h24m

I have been wondering why the current U.S. government is strongly against BRICS but supports Lula/Moraes.

On the surface it does not seem to make sense, apart from an emotional Bolsonaro==Trump==Bad argument.

I have watched Greenwald a couple of times on the Moraes topic, but never saw this addressed.

viburnum
5 replies
13h50m

People used it to organize an attempted coup against a democratically elected government and twitter is not cooperating with the investigation.

whatshisface
1 replies
3h39m

I don't see how that argument would leave coffee shops and other gathering places able to stay open during elections.

lanstin
0 replies
2h38m

Coup not election and if they don't cooperate with an investigation of an attempt to subvert the election with violence, they might not.

slowhadoken
1 replies
13h27m

I’m pretty sure that’s the CIA’s job. Isn’t it because Brazil doesn’t have free speech so they have absurd “hate speech” laws similar to the ones that are backfiring in Scotland right now?

Green_Frog
0 replies
1h49m

Coup without firearms. How does that work? Are the people supposed to shout their lungs out until the government decides to step down cooperatively?

throwadobe
13 replies
17h5m

ITT: people who think free speech rights codified in the Brazilian constitution are the same as those in the US pulling their views out of a hat.

ikmckenz
12 replies
13h8m

Freedom of speech is a general conception of human rights, not any one particular law. Governments can choose to respect (or not!) those rights, but the idea applies to everyone.

bad_user
9 replies
12h15m

When it comes to human rights, unfortunately, the notion got perverted by USSR and its allies.

The difference between the US and the rest of the world is that the US has the First Amendment, which it upholds. So, for example, in the US "hate speech" is not banned, and while inciting violence is banned, it must be literal incitement:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_Stat...

This is important, because freedom of speech was supposedly allowed behind the Iron Curtain as well, as long as it wasn't "going against the socialist order" or "promoting fascism" (with capitalism or social democracy being just light fascism). Various countries found ways to pay lip service to human rights, while being authoritarian.

sweeter
5 replies
9h50m

theres no absolute free speech in the US. There are most certainly plenty of things you cannot say and protestors are often violently silenced by police and riot squads. Then the media upholds its end of the bargain by heavily re-enforcing the State Dept. position while besmirching the message of the protestors and misrepresenting them in any and every way imaginable.

You can say a lot of awful shit, but you really can't openly oppose the State with any real threat of power. I mean, I wouldn't really call the US admitting to assassinating Malcom X, MLK, among others, the pinnacle of free speech... all theses people did was speak out against injustices that they observed... and that's just one incident. This happens everyday.

bad_user
4 replies
5h53m

protestors are often violently silenced by police and riot squads

Vandalizing public or private property, or blocking people from going to work, isn't free speech, if that's what you're referring to.

lossolo
1 replies
4h52m

You can't criticize Israel or you will get punished by government in US. Where is your freedom of speech in this case?

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to revive a newspaper's challenge on free speech grounds to an Arkansas law requiring state government contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel, a policy the publication's lawyers called a threat to a constitutionally protected form of collective protest." [1]

1. https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-spurns-challe...

2. https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/23/us-states-use-anti-boyco...

aguaviva
0 replies
2h55m

You can't criticize Israel or you will get punished by government in US.

This is hyperbolic and obviously false.

Brain-dead and authoritarian though the anti-BDS legislation is -- it is ultimately a corner case with very narrow applicability.

On the whole, you are perfectly free to criticize Israel in the U.S., and of course countless people have been doing just that for multiple decades.

krisboyz781
0 replies
1h36m

Your dumbass conveniently skipped over US government plotting to assassinate MLK over his free speech. Real rich

aguaviva
0 replies
3h17m

Protestors in the U.S. are frequently beaten, illegally detained and have toxic chemicals deployed against them in the streets (or are otherwise menaced and harassed by police) -- regardless of whether they are doing those things. This has been going on for decades, but should be especially obvious to you if you've been following the news in the past 4.5 years.

kelnos
1 replies
9h8m

the US has the First Amendment, which it upholds [...] and while inciting violence is banned

So the US only upholds 1A when it decides it wants to. In other words, no, it doesn't really uphold it.

(And for the record, I'm mostly fine with that! I'm tired of this idea that absolute free speech is a thing, that people actually have it in large numbers, and that if they did, it would actually be a good thing.)

bad_user
0 replies
5h56m

If you came up with that conclusion you know nothing about how US's justice system works.

I don't know what "absolute" means for you, but yes, free speech is good, the more free it is, the better. As to your popularity fallacy, consider that for most of our time on earth, constant war and slavery were normal, and our grand-grandparents knew both.

profeatur
0 replies
10h58m

The divide goes back even further than the USSR.

The enlightenment era gave us two separate definitions of freedom. At its foundation, the US govt is granted whatever rights it has to constrain freedom by wholly autonomous and free individuals, and in the other (French, continental) conception freedom is both defined and granted by the state. Authoritarianism is baked into the definition.

It will take future historians living in more intellectually permissive times to give a full account as to why the first concept of freedom only ever took root in the US and why the majority of countries have adopted the second.

throwadobe
0 replies
5h9m

Not for legal purposes, it isn't. Unless you're arguing the morality of the Brazilian Constitution and the limits it imposes on freedom of speech in some scenarios, such as outlawing racism.

The judge doesn't care about the morality of his decision. He shouldn't care. He is there to decide what's lawful and unlawful based on the facts and on the law.

krisboyz781
0 replies
1h38m

No, it doesn't you moron. Stop trying to apply Western standards to other countries.

newsclues
12 replies
1d3h

People still aren't CHOOSING to leave Twitter/X.

davidcbc
5 replies
1d3h

Citation needed. I know tons of people who have chosen to leave Twitter since Elon took over

tourmalinetaco
2 replies
1d3h

Objectively, if Twitter is banned in your country, you were not given a choice in the matter.

davidcbc
0 replies
3h32m

That wasn't the claim. The claim was that people aren't leaving voluntarily, which simply isn't true. Lots of people have voluntarily left Twitter since Musk took over (About 23% DAU, a ~50 million drop) and that's before Brazil banned it

That people are also leaving because of twitter being banned in their country isn't relevant to the original claim

chomp
0 replies
1d1h

Your response is a non sequitur; adding on to GP’s comment, countless people have left voluntarily and are easily findable on mastodon and bluesky, refuting GGP’s comment.

mensetmanusman
1 replies
16h16m

5 tons / average American = 24 people?

debo_
0 replies
14h10m

This is an underrated comment. I laughed out loud.

add-sub-mul-div
2 replies
18h15m

Early adopters of the next generation of social networks have left. The passive (a majority) have stayed.

mlindner
1 replies
17h34m

I'd personally prefer to have no social media network at all rather than a "next" one.

add-sub-mul-div
0 replies
16h24m

Reducing social media hours or eliminating them is also a great alternative to Twitter.

xenospn
0 replies
2h31m

I did

insane_dreamer
0 replies
1h43m

I did. No regrets.

I'm on Mastodon and Bluesky but rarely visit -- not sure I need that kind of network after all. I don't feel any loss of value after closing my Twitter/X account, and am glad to have the time back.

I've basically narrowed my use down to two networks that I visit regularly:

IG (private account) for photos of friends/family and some interesting strangers. I keep my follow list quite short, and unfollow liberally if I feel I'm not getting anything out of the content anymore. But lately the sponsored and ad content feels like 5-to-1 vs my actual follow content. If my family didn't use it to see pics of my kids then I'd close it.

HN: the only reason HN works is that it's not centered around "following" people (like every other network), which then becomes a race to get more "followers" which becomes some sort of currency. I saw this happening with Quora in its early days where after a promising start and really interesting content/replies by actual experts, it turned into a little attention-seeking groupie club--that's when I closed my account.

dartharva
0 replies
13h0m

I mean, of course. If the people you wish to follow only post on Twitter, you have no choice in the matter.

rvz
10 replies
1d4h

Several folks in Brazil had much to choose from out of Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky as alternatives to Twitter / X.

Now that X got banned in Brazil and to potentially lose over 100M+ users we are starting to see which platforms they are choosing to sign up to.

So far, Bluesky is seeing a surge in user registrations after the invite system was lifted a year ago. I would expect Threads to also see a surge in registrations as well.

Mastodon however appears not to be even considered as a migration path at all yet, but either way it is still early days for all options.

We'll see in the next 6 months after this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39471807

stevebmark
7 replies
1d1h

Mastodon was dead from the start, it isn’t in the running.

Threads has too big of an image problem to overcome. No one wants Instagram for Twitter.

Bluesky is the only platform currently that has a chance, but it’s an under funded, tiny team who can’t ship on time. Bluesky will see a surge in registrations but no change in DAU as they still haven’t supported video, so no one will stay on the site.

threeseed
3 replies
13h26m

No one wants Instagram for Twitter

It has about 200M MAU. So a lot of people clearly do want it.

Hamuko
2 replies
10h15m

How are the MAU counted for Threads, as the user accounts are the same exact as on Instagram?

threeseed
1 replies
9h3m

The URLs are different (threads.net versus instagram.com).

So pretty easy to tell in the analytics which site the user is on.

Hamuko
0 replies
8h46m

What about the app? As far as I know, Instagram users were getting Threads notifications inside the app.

gargron
2 replies
18h15m

Why do you believe that about Mastodon?

insane_dreamer
0 replies
1h35m

Onboarding and discovery is much too difficult for the average user. Distributed is technologically cool, but will remain niche IMO.

FMecha
0 replies
7h7m

Mastodon is too fragmented for the common people, and any chance of that being popular is getting usurped by Bluesky anyway.

guerrilla
1 replies
1d3h

Where are you pulling your statistics from?

I'm looking at one of the Mastodon Users Count bots and it seems like there's a 43% increase in sign-ups per weeks since last week. Of course, I have no idea why and that might be normal noise.

ryzvonusef
8 replies
9h9m

Twitter is 'banned' in Pakistan for very similar reasons (requiring a local representative, requiring censorship, etc) under the guise of 'national security concerns'.

We are all still using it via VPN. We get all the govt related info from it, and no one is asking, how come the govt dept themselves are using twitter when it's banned?

No one will move to bluesky/threads/mastodon because as I said everyone is on twitter.

Afterall, if I want to know about the next road blockage or electricity outage, I know I need to go to twitter to check, where else would I go?

these are bullship tactics, but they seem to be working, and the internet is fracturing. It was nice while it lasted, but we will no loner have a 'world-wide' web, just national networks with passport controls on accessing external nets.

throwadobe
2 replies
2h42m

What's happening in Pakistan has no bearing on what's happening in Brazil. Just because "twitter is banned" in both countries doesn't mean it was banned for the same reasons or that the ban applies in the same way.

ryzvonusef
0 replies
2h15m

Absolutely, I understand Brazil and Pakistan are two different countries, I just wanted to share my own experiences to provide some interesting insight on how people react to bans.

In Brazil, people are apparently moving to BlueSky, but in my country, we didn't move platforms, we just to jump over the fence via VPNs.

blackeyeblitzar
0 replies
30m

It has bearing in one key way, which is that censorship is mostly a tool of authoritarian governments. And Pakistan’s reasons for censorship are nearly identical to Brazil’s - forced censorship of elected officials, claims of protecting national interests, claiming a lack of local representatives (which obviously Brazil doesn’t require of millions of websites). However, Brazil has a constitutional guarantee to free speech without censorship, so it is more unexpected. So I’m not sure what you’re even defending here.

eertami
2 replies
7h17m

Most people in real life aren't using twitter actively at all, and they survive just fine? The only people I know who use it are tech workers in the conference scene, in my real world social circles there is nobody.

Personally I would check my providers website/status page in such circumstances.

ryzvonusef
0 replies
5h5m

I am in pakistan, and life here works differently. I explained in detail in another reply above, but basically websites are dead. Twitter is where it's at, for better or worse.

NeoTar
0 replies
6h52m

Personally I would check my providers website/status page in such circumstances.

I hate than many providers now consider updates to Twitter/ Other social media sufficient and do not bother to publish to their own website!

therouwboat
1 replies
8h28m

In my country electricity provider sends text message if there is an outage, but if I need to check something, I go to their website, they have nice map showing what areas are affected etc. Does twitter even work without account anymore?

ryzvonusef
0 replies
5h6m

In my country, they had to tell govt officers to remember to check their email because agreements would be signed, and foreign officials would email relevant officers to start work and get no reply and get confused.

Turned out officers run their entire dept on Whatsapp.

Everything is adhoc, emails are in the old 2MB email, 50 MB inbox era, websites have not been updated since they were created and only page that gets changed is the organogram, (got to advertise the new minister in charge).

So no websites are NOT a reliable source of info. For example, there does infact exist a website to check loadshedding and work shutdown schedules... but my area was split off from a previous feeder and now has a new feeder code, but the website was not updated so I don't updated for my meter.

But I can check the twitter account and see tomorrow's shutdowns, and if I am regular, I can be prepped for tomorrow's 5 hr shutdown.

same for other things like road closures, due to protests or security corridor or whatever. Maybe other things, twitter is the best source of info.

Officers maintain an active twitter profile (despite the ban!) because ministers also are there, and they want their work to be visible.

If your boss sees the tweets of your work and people praising you in the comments, that improves your chances of a promotion and better postings.

braunjohnson
7 replies
1d1h

I remain surprised at how casually people will step over the free speech dead body so they can hate on people the media at large has maligned.

Regardless of what you think of Musk, where's your outrage over this blatant authoritarianism?

edmundsauto
3 replies
16h14m

Is it acceptable for foreign owned entities to not follow the rules of a country? I think, probably not - the choice is to follow the regulations or to not be there, like Meta in China.

hellgas00
1 replies
14h50m

Alexandre de Moraes whims are now considered the "rules of the country", how quickly Brazil turned into a dictatorship.

Hamuko
0 replies
10h9m

Is the US also a dictatorship since nine (or rather, five) unelected people were able to abolish the right to abortion, the Chevron deference and what else at their whim?

ilikehurdles
0 replies
11h22m

A totalitarian leader flagrantly violating his own country's constitution is now "the rules of a country" probably because the guy you dislike is associated with the other side.

thimabi
0 replies
5h42m

There is little authoritarianism in the decision to block access to X. Brazilian law, properly drafted and passed by two independent legislative chambers, dictates several important things:

- foreign companies that operate in Brazil must have a representative there.

- all constitutional rights are to be equally protected, meaning that there are no absolute rights, such as freedom of speech.

- websites have to comply with Brazilian regulations and judicial orders, including removing content that has been deemed illegal by the judiciary.

- the blocking of a non-compliant website is explicitly listed as a penalty under the law.

Right now, Brazil’s Supreme Court is made up of judges appointed by various presidents, and there are tons of members of the opposition in Parliament. Anything that the Court does is subject to these checks and balances, and eventual abuses, such as “banning VPNs”, are quickly overturned in most cases.

At the moment, the only thing that Musk might rightfully challenge in court is the blocking of Starlink’s assets — as there is clear dissent about the legality of this measure. In terms of content moderation and blocking, the letter and spirit of the law are being properly followed.

amlib
0 replies
17h2m

Authoritarianism would be if the government was pre-screening everything that was posted, having agents routinely shaking down social media companies or acting without any support of the law. What happened here is that bad actors have been taking advantages of the lack of accountability that social media had for the last 20 years. When laws were finally issued a few years ago, those "bad actions" could finally be labelled as crimes. Twitter was given ample time and opportunities to comply with such law, but after failing many times a court order was issued to block it.

What would be much more productive to discuss is if such law that gives accountability to social media is valid and weather the implementation is of good enough quality to catch abuses without impacting freedom of speech. I suspect it is, since we have similar laws mandating accountability to traditional media for 100s of years by now. Afaik any democratic country has such laws, in fact, the usa used to have strong laws around traditional media accountability until a few decades ago when they were weakened.

GolfPopper
0 replies
12h25m

Regardless of what you think of Musk, where's your outrage over this blatant authoritarianism?

"Billionaire's toy social media network gets banned after blowing off entire country's judicial system" doesn't exactly sounds like "blatant authoritarianism". When I listen carefully, it sounds closer to "rule of law".

seanvelasco
5 replies
6h13m

I like Bluesky, its devs, and its tech. I even built a third-party web client for it in Solid.js. But I find Bluesky to be too toxic. There's too much unwanted nudity, even if all my filters are turned on.

newZWhoDis
0 replies
2h12m

Now this is how you do guerrilla marketing.

jazzyjackson
0 replies
48m

I wonder if anyone's doing intersections and differences on feeds yet - would be awesome if there were people aggregating all the only fans accounts so I could just subtract that from my algorithmic feed.

davidcbc
0 replies
2h13m

I have never seen any nudity on bsky and I've been using it for more than a year

_heimdall
0 replies
3h14m

That's really the core of the social media problem though. Social platforms are asked to, and signing themselves up to, walk the fine line between free speech and content moderation.

Ultimately they are private platforms and as far as I'm concerned they can censor as much or as little as they want, but its a fundamental problem of any algorithmically managed feed of user generated content. There's no easy fix there and you'll always piss of a large chunk of the population.

Maken
0 replies
1h58m

Really? I need to investigate that further.

nova22033
4 replies
16h30m

double standards?

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/modi-twitter-bbc-m...

“First I’ve heard,” Musk wrote in response to a question from Canadian lawyer David Freiheit.

“It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things,” he added, referring to the multiple companies where he is CEO.

xenospn
0 replies
2h32m

I wonder who’s fault is that?

a_victorp
0 replies
9h45m

The difference is that, in Brazil, he would be censoring the far right and Musk wouldn't do that

Finnucane
0 replies
2h37m

He bought Twitter claiming he could fix it. Now he is too busy to fix it? Maybe he should have thought about that before spending billions on ego boo.

AlienRobot
0 replies
2h18m

overnight

It's been a year and half.

mlindner
4 replies
17h38m

This is all very unfortunate. It's sad to see liberalism dying in Brazil in real time. The very little reported thing is that this judge also installed a fine of something like $8000 per month (more than double the top percentile salary) for anyone using a VPN and also demanded that Apple and Google remove X and any VPNs from their app stores.

Brazil is rapidly turning into a police state.

throwaway48476
1 replies
16h34m

*back into a police state

Unfortunately western countries are no longer willing to set a good example to encourage developing countries to follow.

krisboyz781
0 replies
1h39m

The west setting a good example? Are you fucking retarded? The same west that routinely exploits other countries to prop its economy, decimates countries' economy and leadership in the name of "democracy" while right wingers don't even want democracy. Man stfu, the west has committed more atrocities than any other sector of the world yet you all will continue to act like everything is all good. The west is no model to follow and countries are realizing that, which is making the west upset.

fdgjgbdfhgb
0 replies
11h22m

The VPN part was almost immediately overturned, but it is concerning that it was included in the first place

Ylpertnodi
0 replies
11h6m

...using a vpn to access twitter.

jazzyjackson
4 replies
19h22m

Is there any plan to offload hosting costs to users repos or do the relays have to bear the cost of images / videos ? It just seems very incongruous to me for a decentralized app to suffer from hugs of death like this link is right now. I actually tried to pull this up on the wayback machine but they seem to have only crawled as far as the butterfly logo ? Is this intentional ? I know that bluesky likes to give users control of where their post ends up, maybe they have asked internet archive not to crawl ? [0]

I liked how urbit did it, just paste s3 bucket credentials into the app settings. A - its pretty cheap even for a terabyte of storage, B - it removes liability from the application not having to host user content, C - it increases decentralization, with many hosts in many jurisdictions able to host content.

EDIT: I went to sign up for a new account and right away I'm given the choice to host content on my own server, neat, I think I'll give this a try [1]

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20240831230005/https://bsky.app/...

[1] https://docs.bsky.app/blog/self-host-federation

pfraze
3 replies
19h11m

The bad crawl for internet archive is because it's a giant SPA. It's a react native codebase which, while irritating for web users, allows us to target all the platforms without building multiple apps. Kind of a life-saver.

Relays actually don't process media; that's up to the applications. We intentionally keep the repo-hosting costs low (and they'll get lower soon) so that self-hosting your data and keypairs remains affordable. Think of the application model as equivalent to a search engine, with the repo-hosts (PDSes) being web servers. That's almost exactly how it works.

The only way decentralization would make a hug of death irrelevant is if the individual nodes weren't processing the full network, in which case you're not getting the global social experience, so.

toomuchtodo
1 replies
19h9m

Please consider a formal, efficient mechanism to push archival data into the Internet Archive.

Edit: tremendous, thank you!

pfraze
0 replies
19h8m

One of our team (bryan newbold) used to work at the IA and we have a good relationship with them because we used to attend their decentralized web summits/camps. Really wonderful people. We do plan to chat with them about it.

jazzyjackson
0 replies
15h51m

my thinking wrt hugs of death is that if one host is saturated, the content would be available at another host, such that it's not simply unavailable due to high traffic, but leaving that aside, I'm still unsure which party is delivering content to end users.

If I host gifs at bsky.jazzyjackson.xyz, and my posts are indexed by some number of relays, and finally viewed by bsky or an alternate front end app, is that app mirroring my gifs to shoulder the burden, preventing traffic from hitting my $5 VPS?

I always thought {bit,web}torrent would be a good fit for this problem of mirroring content among multiple hosts, but maybe there's a reason no one has gone down that road.

seydor
3 replies
12h9m

So what can brazil do to shut down Bluesky if it starts hosting the same illegal accounts?

Maken
1 replies
1h57m

Maybe Blursky will comply with local legislation?

blackeyeblitzar
0 replies
1h38m

That would make it roughly useless for political discourse, given the secret censorship orders here are about deleting the accounts of current duly elected officials, who are in the opposition to the current administration, as revealed in the AlexandreFiles:

https://x.com/AlexandreFiles/status/1829979981130416479

Also minor correction: there was no “local legislation” that gave the Brazilian Supreme Court justice (Alexandre de Moraes) the power to put out unilateral decrees to censor content or ban accounts or arrest people, let alone do it in secret outside of public visibility. As the link above shows, this is all illegal per local laws. This justice served on two different top level courts simultaneously, and as president of one of these courts he gave himself this power to use through the other court he’s on. This is all highly unethical and a usurping of power outside the proper political process. It’s why the NYT call him a threat to democracy nearly two years ago:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/world/americas/brazil-ale...

The only fix is for Brazilians to reject this turn to dictatorship.

extheat
0 replies
11h26m

They can get rid of apps and block websites that they want, which is basically what they’re doing right now.

paulvnickerson
3 replies
14h21m

That the tide turned against Musk when he undid the old Twitter censorship regime which was targeted towards primarily American conservatives. Since then, a lot of folks, including here and on major subreddits like news and politics, have openly wished harm on the site and on Musk. Here Musk was pushing back on illegal [1] censorship, and many people on this thread are celebrating the authoritarian judge responsible.

Lots of pro-censorship people on HN. Remember what happened to Brendan Eich? [2]

[1] https://x.com/AlexandreFiles/status/1829979981130416479

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7525198

hocuspocus
1 replies
14h12m

Then why doesn't Elon push back against blocklists from the UAE, Turkey, Russia, ... Are those governments less authoritarian than Brazil?

paulvnickerson
0 replies
14h9m

Is there any information on this either way?

krisboyz781
0 replies
1h30m

You clearly haven't been on X. There is plenty of censhorship on the site. Musk blocked all links to substack because of competition. Musk banned famous people for criticizing him. Musk blocked the jet tracker kid. Musk blocks people from saying slurs towards white people and asians yet the n word is free to use AND threat of violence against other races is free to be used. Stfu, Musk is an evil person. He's everything that republicans claim Soros to be

dartharva
3 replies
13h4m

I don't understand why Tumblr hasn't been able to lift itself up amidst all of this

pmdr
0 replies
9h15m

Didn't tumblr kinda die the day they banned porn?

insane_dreamer
0 replies
1h51m

Tumblr is for longer form; a completely different type of network

AlienRobot
0 replies
2h8m

Honestly, it's because Tumblr is too good for Twitter users.

In my brief experience with Twitter, it felt suffocating. Every recommended tweet didn't see me as a person to share thoughts with but as some sort of prey, like they only wanted me for my attention, formulating tweets with open-ended questions and clickbait to bait me into engaging with them.

On Tumblr, it's just people's blogs. I follow a guy who takes photos of birds. No sweating. No engagement metrics. Just cool birds. Check it out https://www.tumblr.com/doingitfortheexposure

It's relaxing.

I don't think Twitter users would get used to the peace of mind that Tumblr can offer them.

In fact when I checked Bluesky, some new Brazilian users were talking about how there was no "trending topics" section in Bluesky. A part of Twitter's interface that I personally tried very hard to avoid looking at.

locallost
2 replies
11h44m

Here is a friendly reminder that Twitter/X started cooperating way more with government takedown requests since Musk took over [1].

So obviously Musk is not protecting free speech here because he usually doesn't do it. What is he protecting?

[1] https://restofworld.org/2023/elon-musk-twitter-government-or...

aaa_aaa
1 replies
11h18m

No he is just rubbing them the wrong way. States, governments are control freaks. They make sure only their "disinformation" must be spread (public schooling, paid academia, controlled media). Rest will be muffled.bl Before musk Twitter was aligning with them, now not much.

qsdf38100
0 replies
10h39m

Musk himself said he had no choice but to comply, to justify censorship in on several other occasions. Looks like he doesn’t have to after all.

slimsag
0 replies
12h27m

Nostr is a protocol. Bluesky is a product.

bentcorner
0 replies
2h50m

I tried it and was shortly spammed with crypto-bro messages. Interesting tech but a bad product.

h4ck_th3_pl4n3t
2 replies
9h26m

Well, the general issue that caused it is disinformation campaigns

People that point out Brazil's current state of affairs don't seem to realize that eventually, a ban of unmoderated social networks is inevitable from a legislative standpoint.

I wish that X/bluesky/Facebook/etc had something like a clear label next to its users, maybe a robot icon when the post was created via their API or in an automated manner.

That would help people to identify campaigns already a lot.

But on the other hand, these are the paying customers, right? It's always "just advertisement" until it is not anymore.

ben_w
0 replies
2h12m

Well, the general issue that caused it is disinformation campaigns

a ban of unmoderated social networks is inevitable from a legislative standpoint.

I am surprised this even needs to be stated; either 15 or 18 years ago I made the mistake of creating a phpBB forum instance for my shareware, and it was a rounding error from 100% of signups being spammers.

The only difference between spam and disinformation is economic vs political power.

Green_Frog
0 replies
1h55m

Despite of its original meaning, disinformation has become just a slogan word for content people in power don't want you to see.

The antidote to disinformation isn't moderation, it is true information.

X has advanced more than any other platform with community notes. Tech is the antidote, not more government regulation and centralized power.

add-sub-mul-div
2 replies
19h15m

Hopefully the growth of Bluesky doesn't get crazy. It's handy for Twitter to keep the eternal September types in a sort of quarantine. Grandparents on Facebook, culture wars and spam/scams/porn on Twitter.

It's best if there's no single monolithic "winner" in the exodus from Twitter because that community would descend into the same patterns of stupidity that are unavoidable past a certain community size.

The next phase of social media should be about community affinity and quality, not size.

toofy
0 replies
13h46m

this a point which im glad to see someone else bring up.

i’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line the same group of sil val investors started trying to convince us that everyone should want to be in the same place at the same time or it’s somehow a “failure”.

i keep repeating it, but that kind of ridiculous idea wouldn’t ever be fun in the real world and it’s just as ridiculous to suggest it would somehow be different just because it’s “online”.

every city has multiple styles of restaurants, bars, clubs, stores, etc… for obvious reasons. sometimes we want a quiet night out, sometimes we want a loud concert. some people don’t enjoy the same things i enjoy and i don’t enjoy their shit tastes either ;) and that’s totally ok.

i’m very very skeptical of anyone who suggests _everyone_ should have fun being in the same venue at the same time. it’s weird af. the mere suggestion is incredibly shady at worst and plain ridiculous understanding of people at best. it’s one of the quickest ways to make me stop taking someone seriously.

makeworld
0 replies
2h24m

That's what the fediverse is all about! :)

pram
1 replies
1d3h

Bluesky can become the modern version of Orkut.

stavros
0 replies
1d3h

Or, hopefully, of Twitter.

pfraze
1 replies
1d1h

Servers are holding up so far. Somewhere been 800k-1mm signups (need to check backend). Fortunately we were overprovisioned. If we hit 4mm new signups then things should get interesting.

edit: we did have some degradations (user handles entering an invalid state, firehose crashed a couple times, image servers are giving bad load latencies randomly) but we managed to avoid a full outage.

pfraze
0 replies
18h39m

(in case I look like a crazy person, hn threads got merged so see my other comment which was a copy & update of this)

geekodour
0 replies
16h48m

is this some kind of sick joke? i want orkut back so bad!

insane_dreamer
1 replies
1h31m

I think banning any network that allows citizens to air their views, whatever they may be, is very dangerous. Free speech that is free of control is essential.

I also think that anyone, especially someone prone to childish tantrums like Musk, having unquestionable control of a major network on which citizens can air their views, is also very dangerous. Free speech that is free of control is essential.

mplewis
0 replies
15m

Twitter isn’t a network where anyone can air their views. Elon regularly takes punitive action to mark links that criticize him as containing malware, has accounts banned that post evidence of his misdeeds, etc.

We have a network where you can post what you want to say. It’s called the World Wide Web.

wtcactus
0 replies
7h40m

It’s obvious by now that this law will only get selectively enforced. Several members of the ruling socialist party continue to use X to push electoral propaganda aimed at the upcoming election (which would be funny if not tragic). [1]

Any law that’s only selectively enforced, is ripe for abuse by any kind of government. More so by a government that’s descending into autocracy.

[1] https://x.com/sofiafonsoferre/status/1830181842898530650

pipeline_peak
0 replies
12h38m

Who would’ve thought it took legal obligations to get masses to finally adopt a Twitter alternative…

hooverd
0 replies
16h10m

Brazilian Miku is dead. Long live Brazilian Miku.

extraduder_ire
0 replies
4h19m

For anyone with a strong enough computer, you can see the firehose stream of what people are posting on bluesky live here: https://firesky.tv/

The stream has noticeably more Portuguese in it these last couple of days.

dariosalvi78
0 replies
8h22m

Funny how Musk bought Twitter for saving it from censorship and pushed it into censorship. The fact that decentralised services are becoming a thing it's a good outcome though. Maybe that's what always been in his mind after all :) ?

cbsmith
0 replies
2h5m

Bluesky is the new Orkut! ;-)

alphabettsy
0 replies
1d2h

I’ve started using it again recently and find it’s improved massively. I can find all the people I want to follow and my feed is much nicer. I see no reason to go back to Twitter.

NickWrightData
0 replies
19h39m

Found this on Bluesky lol