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Starlink is refusing to comply with Brazil's X ban (Update: Starlink will comply)
(www.engadget.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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I hope and pray what Brazil is doing now (but don't believe it will) becomes a blueprint in choking off Musks cynical use of Freedom of Speech to attempt to overthrow democracies everywhere in service to fascist power
The problem is that this IS the blueprint.
Blocking twitter? That's fine. People generally hate twitter so whatever.
But starlink? That is a genuinely okay product (so long as it isn't too sunny where you live...) and actually does serve a niche for people who can't get better internet. And it rapidly will go from "The government blocked twitter. I guess that is probably good?" to "The government is taking away internet from thousands of people and this is literally worse than china"
Brazilian here, the court couldn’t find anyone in Brazil that represents X to pay the fines and to block the accounts spreading lies about the anti-democratic events of January of last year. Since Elon Musk is one of the major shareholder of both companies they connected the dots and Starlink has representatives in Brazil their account was frozen in order to get the fines owed by Musk’s other company. Later the government found out Starlink was not blocking access to X as any other internet provided was instructed to do so.
Musk is a big supporter of Far-right Brazilians including former president Bolsonaro and his political allies. It was during Bolsonaro’s government that Brazilian army switched to use Starlink.
The free speech agenda that Musk is advertising is not the main issue here but a government that goes against Musks interests and his companies.
Free speech has jack all to do with it.
What matters are people who suddenly can't watch kitty cat videos... or organize military operations. They don't care about misinformation campaigns and fines. They care that suddenly The Government has taken something away from them.
Yeah. It’s really sad that a lot of people on remote areas in the Amazon will be affected by a ban on starlink. They also spent quite a bit of money for Brazil’s standards on the equipment as well.
Still, this shouldn’t be the reason to put anyone above the law, no one should be above a county’s law.
If this actually happens it may really backfire on Elon and all companies he’s involved, at least in Brazil.
As you invested your money in one of his companies products and now because of his massive ego/lack of mental stability you either lost support, functionality or access to parts (for maintenance of hardware) and I doubt any of his companies would pay their users for this inconvenience. This would make using any of the products he’s involved with too risky, better to just use a more “mentally stable” competitor even if the service or product is slightly worse.
You are assuming people look at this rationally. Rather than "the politicians hate a guy and I suffer"
It is very similar to the logic by which people go out of their way to bend over backwards to support anti-consumer practices if ti is for the game or movie they want to watch.
In this case, assuming Brazil made the right call, I'd look at it more as "Starlink is taking away internet from thousands of people" instead of "the government". Nobody can or should expect any government to allow businesses to operate within their border that blatantly disregards legal orders. If people lose access to the internet the blame is on Starlink's hubris, not the government's insistence on the rule of law.
That said, I have not been following this story and am cautious enough about Brazil's government that I'm not taking any stance here over which side is right or wrong.