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

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420 points rvz | 10 comments | 31 Aug 24 13:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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Adrian_Ferreira ◴[01 Sep 24 04:57 UTC] No.41414410[source]▶
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.
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hexage1814 ◴[01 Sep 24 07:49 UTC] No.41415073[source]▶
>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.

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n_plus_1_acc ◴[01 Sep 24 08:47 UTC] No.41415304[source]▶
Executives have, by definition, cobtrol over everything inside their company.
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1. kelnos ◴[01 Sep 24 09:09 UTC] No.41415400[source]▶
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.

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2. 123pie123 ◴[01 Sep 24 09:53 UTC] No.41415579[source]▶
Can you explain who has control over a company then?
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3. FollowingTheDao ◴[01 Sep 24 10:13 UTC] No.41415663[source]▶
There is no one entity who has control. It is a combination of the CEO, shareholders, governments, employees, and the customers.
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4. flakeoil ◴[01 Sep 24 12:15 UTC] No.41416335[source]▶
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.

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5. tfourb ◴[01 Sep 24 13:22 UTC] No.41416802[source]▶
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.

6. presentation ◴[01 Sep 24 13:31 UTC] No.41416849{3}[source]▶
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.
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7. signatoremo ◴[01 Sep 24 15:48 UTC] No.41417865[source]▶
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...

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8. yazzku ◴[01 Sep 24 16:37 UTC] No.41418233{4}[source]▶
"externalities" is precisely the kind of word used by those who evade responsibility.
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9. ziml77 ◴[01 Sep 24 17:23 UTC] No.41418593{5}[source]▶
They would never use that word because it acknowledges that there are impacts that aren't accounted for in the costs to them.
10. flakeoil ◴[01 Sep 24 18:52 UTC] No.41419288{3}[source]▶
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.