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Brazil’s supreme court upholds ban on Elon Musk’s X over ‘illegal conduct’
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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Even if it somehow gets reinstated, the damage is done. Majority have already left for alternatives.
Are we seeing the same thing? I've never seen as much activity from Brazilian users on X as now.
I guess all this block did was teach the Brazilian population how to use VPNs. And most are just ignoring the threat of a US$ 8.900,00 daily fine from the dictator because, by its very nature, VPNs keep them anonymous. X is on bad terms with the dictator, so it will not expose anyone's IP addresses even if requested by him. None of the major VPN companies are based in Brazil, and it would be hard to ask them for IP addresses too.
Even some major news outlets are still posting on X, saying that they're posting through "international staff members." Some politicians and notable personalities are starting to use the same excuse: "someone out of the country is posting for me." This block is looking pretty ineffective, and it's serving as an educational incentive for people to start using VPNs. If any more social media platforms are also blocked, people are already well prepared to circumvent the blocks.
So, what has the dictator gained from this temper tantrum? He forced X out of the country, leaving no local offices to receive his orders, even the reasonable ones like those related to normal (non-political persecution) crimes. And he strengthened the protests that were already scheduled for September 7th (Brazil Independence Day), which will turn into an event mainly asking for his impeachment.
Tell me you support Bolsonaro and Musk without telling me you support them
Actually, Bolsonaro is a fraud. He only acts in the self-interest of himself and his immediate family members. As he's being threatened by the dictator, with some speculation that he could be arrested at any time, he's keeping silent during this whole X blocking incident so he doesn't suffer retaliation from the dictator.
As for Musk, I know that, like every businessman, he has his financial interests. I surely would if I were one, and I would not blame anyone for doing the same, as nobody gets rich spending money unwisely. However, I can recognize that his passion for free speech is genuine; otherwise, he wouldn't have bought Twitter for $44 billion. Under the most reasonable analysis, this was a bad deal in terms of return on investment. Maybe it'll bear fruit in the long term, but it's a big, nebulous maybe. So as he decided to buy it anyway, he surely did so on principle, not for money.
"Musk [...] passion for free speech is genuine"
As long as it lines up with the right wing agenda, otherwise it's woke bullshit that needs to be censored and banned, right?
Delusional, both of you.
Before Elon acquired Twitter, the platform enforced an one-sided policy of censoring right-wing points of view. It even started actively shielding the left from any criticism, such as when the Hunter Biden Laptop story was blatantly censored so as to not affect Joe Biden's presidential campaign negatively.
Now, he lets both sides of the political spectrum participate in the debate without censorship. Are you trying to say things got worse because of this?
What's funny is that there are a slew of articles from 2019 to 2022, before Musk's takeover, talking about a study that found Twitter's algorithm actually had a right wing bias because conservative opinions generated higher engagement (both positive and negative) so it boosted them more than liberal ones.
Also Elon has censored many news stories about himself and his companies since his acquisition. He hasn't stopped censorship, he merely took control of it.
A handful of citations:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59011271
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/01/facebook-youtube-twitter-anti-conservative-claims-baseless-report-finds
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/02/01/censorship-conservatives-trump-facebook-twitter-youtube/4316155001/
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/twitter-musk-censors-turkey-election-erdogan
https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-journalists-free-speech-mashable-matt-binder
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/journalists-who-wrote-about-owner-elon-musk-suspended-from-twitter
You really make recoil in disgust at the depths of denial you can plunge to in order to stan a billionaire.