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

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.

72% of Brazilians do not agree with the banning of X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UleMSw8m3o

That’s a random sampling with a tiny group of people. You might as well do an internet poll on a very directed channel.

Do you not have some sort of expedited appeals process in Brazil to short circuit maverick judges like this?

>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.

Executives have, by definition, cobtrol over everything inside their company.

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.

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.

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

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.

Can you explain who has control over a company then?

There is no one entity who has control. It is a combination of the CEO, shareholders, governments, employees, and the customers.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

> this is correct anywhere

So an internet service with global availability has to maintain staff for all 200-ish countries?

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

"externalities" is precisely the kind of word used by those who evade responsibility.

Laws are not de facto ethical or morally good on account of being laws.

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.

They would never use that word because it acknowledges that there are impacts that aren't accounted for in the costs to them.

I never said they were, but the judge isn't wrong for deciding on legality rather than morality.

Often as in much more than 50% of the time for fortune 500 companies. If the CEO and the Chairman of the Board is the same person then there is sort of a conflict of interest. The Board is there to oversee the work of the CEO. The board is headed by the Chairman of the Board. Thus, if the CEO and the Chairman is the same person, then the CEO is accountable to himself.

Not sure why you include investors all of a sudden, as I didn't mention about that. I have no issue with shareholders having a seat on the board.

Just to be clear, the sample size of 1200 is enough for a margin of error of 3% with a 95% CI. It is a huge sample for the claim being made for a population the size of Brazil.