Here’s an analogy: If a radio station or TV channel taught a child to cut themselves, self-harm, or drink toilet water, that broadcaster would be held accountable.
So how can we allow social media platforms to escape responsibility? Children are dying.
I think this viewpoint is not to be dismissed, but I think a way to improve the analogy would be: What if the programs that that TV channel showed were not custom-built by the channel itself, but rather created on-the-fly by millions of anonymous people?
The problem isn't that a child knows how to cut themselves, it's that they lack guidance in life teaching them why that is a dumb idea, or if too young to learn that, supervising them so that they don't.
The STF vote stands at 6-1, and the result is now irreversible. With only 11 justices, even if the remaining four voted against, the majority would still be maintained (6 votes vs. 5).
But there’s only one more fascist judge left on the bench, so the final tally will end up 9 to 2. The decision is final.
> The STF vote stands at 6-1, and the result is now irreversible.
Even then, the detailed justification for each vote is interesting. Just the first one is nearly 200 pages, and presents the whole history of the discussion, mentions precedents from not only the country but also about related laws all over the world, explains what would be the consequences of this particular article being considered invalid (it's not a simple "make them liable", it's the removal of a specific article which prevented them from being liable, which means other articles still apply), and so on. This is much more detailed and nuanced than what a single six-paragraph article can tell. That's the reason I prefer to go to the source for things like that.
I have no idea how Brazil courts work. In the US the supreme court often has 200 page opinion full of high-IQ hot air, which all sound very nice and nuanced. But in practice they know damn well what they're really doing is a long wink and a nod and then they just deny cert anytime the lower courts do their real bidding because they know everything they wrote was bullshit and they don't want to have to hold themselves to it, the point was just to keep up appearances while rolling out the red carpet.
A lot of Brazilian users are posting "I am using a VPN to access X" on BlueSky so the judge will probably order BlueSky to turn over their IP addresses(like he did in orders to X) so they can be fined $9000 a day.
To be fair, that order would only matter if Bluesky is logging and storing user IPs. I don't know of any technical reason for needing to track that based on the AT Protocol, they could avoid the entire problem by not tracking that data (assuming they currently do).
The judge would probably force the legal rep to log ip addresses the next time those users access BlueSky under threat of jail time and frozen bank accounts like he did for Twitters rep.
Is it not a problem to you that a judge would go after legal counsel personally based on how the counsel represents the will of their client?
Personally I see that as a very serious problem. Its one thing if it can be proven that legal counsel knowingly breaks the law. Its entirely different if the lawyer simply disagrees with the judge. Judges shouldn't be able to threaten counsel with jail time of seizure of assets simply because the judge disagrees with the legal argument a client wishes to make.
Are IP addresses really helpful in moderation? Moderation usually pertains to the content itself, meaning you would want to block certain content from being posted regardless of the IP that sends a request. Maybe you extend moderation to include banning users, but at that point you have more specific data than IP addresses (like usernames or user IDs).
You can target a list of suspected spammer IPs, though that's often a losing game of cat and mouse where you end up missing some spammers and catching legitimate users in the crossfire.
I know that for Instagram/Threads, IP is very key to their moderation. Once they ban a user with that IP, any other account from that IP will also be banned (or something like it), it's fundamental to avoid ban evasion.
For Mastodon, all of this is manual, so it will be up to moderators on the server....
But Brazil justice is already in contact with then, as long as they offer a place for justice to send court orders and comply with then, as they have done so far, they wont have any problems..
The definition of free speech in Brazil is more modern and better than that in United States.
Musk is mistaken, because the accounts of disinformation and violence are of people that place bombs in airports. Freedom of speech should not condone violent actions and it appears he wants to enable such behavior by giving Twitter accounts to those individuals.
Because the comment was like saying "no person should be jailed because the constitution says that everyone is free"! No rights is absolute, if you commit crimes or if one right conflicts with another, compromises will be made. And Brazilian laws allows to content to be removed online for reasons of investigation, hate speech or unbased defamation.
Fortunately, there is no censorship happening. Everyone can post anything. But if it is illegal content, there will be consequences and the content could be removed.
Monark's channel were deleted because it spread disinformation about brazilian ellections, and this is forbidden by electoral laws. Also for defending things like the creation of a nazi party, which is also forbidden by brazilian laws.
There is nothing illegal or unconstitutional, because according with Brazilian laws, making apology to Nazism is illegal. Law 7.716/89, article 20. Nobody will previously censor you or check if you are commiting these crimes. But if you commit, there will be consequences.
Citing unconstitutional laws does you no favors. A law can exist and simultaneously be unconstitutional.
The constitution says:
> Any and all censorship of political, ideological and artistic nature is prohibited
Now let's work through this incredibly simple logic.
1. Any and all censorship of ideological nature is prohibited.
2. Nazism is an ideology.
3. Therefore, censorship of nazism is prohibited.
I really don't see how it could possibly be more complicated than that.
You cited this Monark guy. I just looked it up and this is the exact speech that got him cancelled:
> A esquerda radical tem muito mais espaço do que a direita radical, na minha opinião. As duas tinham que ter espaço. Eu sou mais louco que todos vocês. Eu acho que o nazista tinha que ter o partido nazista, reconhecido pela lei.
> The radical left has much more space than the radical right, in my opinion. Both should have space. I'm crazier than all of you. I think the nazis should have the nazi party, recognized by law.
Ironically, it boils down to the exact same argument I used in a previous reply to you. The status quo is not logically consistent.
Let's go over it again:
1. Nazism is banned in Brazil.
2. Brazil has numerous communist parties.
3. Communism is just as bad as if not even worse than nazism.
4. Therefore, either communists must be banned or nazism must be allowed.
It's really simple. Why is nazism banned while these communists get to walk this earth completely unpunished? If you're gonna jail nazis, why in the fuck won't you also jail communists who are even worse? Either allow it or send the communists to jail. Society must pick one of those options in order to avoid some rather unfortunate implications.
Either way, the consequences he suffered for that opinion were also of a free nature. Namely, freedom of association. The other guys didn't want to be associated with him after that and that's absolutely OK. I couldn't find any evidence that the state actually prosecuted or arrested him over that opinion.
So this:
> Also for defending things like the creation of a nazi party, which is also forbidden by brazilian laws.
Is absolute nonsense. This is not actually an example of brazilian laws being upheld. It's an example of people being offended at his "craziness" and then removing him from their circles. Not even in the same ballpark as the state repression we are discussing here. The "consequences" you cited are entirely acceptable and are exactly how society ought to work. If you don't like what he said, then simply refuse to associate with him and refuse to give him money. Calling for censorship of his thoughts is absolutely not acceptable.
From what I'm seeing the persecution only truly started once he started discussing the election. That's when the supreme court started going after him to the point he fled to the United States. Not over nazism as you claimed, over the so called "fake news" as defined by court. In other words, straight up censorship.
Edit:
By the way, neither of us had read the brazilian law you cited. It's time to make this right. I just read the entire document. I invite you to do it as well.
Open the document, search it for "nazi" and you'll find this exact article:
> § 1º Fabricar, comercializar, distribuir ou veicular símbolos, emblemas, ornamentos, distintivos ou propaganda que utilizem a cruz suástica ou gamada, para fins de divulgação do nazismo.
> § 1º Fabricate, commercialize, distribute or convey symbols, emblems, ornaments, distinctives or propaganda which use the swastika or gammadion for the purpose of divulging nazism.
There's nothing about nazi ideology in there. Nowhere does it say that you are prohibited from discussing nazism in any way. It doesn't even say anything about "making apology to Nazism" as you claimed. The term "apology" does not appear anywhere in that text. There is absolutely nothing in that law that criminalizes anything this Monark did.
It just prohibits nazi paraphernalia and propaganda.
Just incredibly ironic that you are the one who ended up spreading misinformation.
Sure, a law is unconstitutional because you say so. You are the appointed authority to interpret the law... All your comments show that you do not understand nothing about law, as you try to interpret it as some sort of formal algorithm or something like this. You use the fact that some right exist to accuse laws of being unconstitutional, blatantly ignoring the basics of law that several of them are created to manage conflicts of different rights. You cannot say that a criminal cannot be jailed because he has the right of freedom, because jailing him is exactly how you manage the conflicts between his rights and everyone else's right. The same goes to free speech.
If you check with law specialists, nobody would agree with you, except a small minority. Several law specialists will agree with banning of nazism: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-60338244
You should learn more about hermeneutics if you want to discuss law interpretation. Law is not interpreted by a formal machine or algorithm. Historical and social context, the law objective and other things are also taken into account. Exactly because these are the things that direct how the conflicts between different rights are managed by the law of a given country.
> If you're gonna jail nazis, why in the fuck won't you also jail communists who are even worse?
1) "I think that some ethnic groups are better than others and some of them should be erradicated to the better of human race."
2) "I think that there should be no private property of the means of production."
So, you are saying that (2) is worse than (1)!? McCarthyism is a hellish drug!
> It just prohibits nazi paraphernalia and propaganda.
> Just incredibly ironic that you are the one who ended up spreading misinformation.
You really did not read the law, except for the parts that were convenient for you... Article 20 says that it is also illegal: "Practice, induce ou incite discrimination based on race, skin color, ethnical group or region of birth." Defending a nazi party would mean inciting discrimination.
> Sure, a law is unconstitutional because you say so. You are the appointed authority to interpret the law...
I'm not required to be some "law authority" to interpret the law and express my opinions on it.
> You use the fact that some right exist to accuse laws of being unconstitutional
I use the fact that the constitution says something, and that lesser laws say other things that are in complete opposition to it. Something that obviously should not be allowed to happen. If some lower law contradicts the goddamn constitution, obviously the constitution is supposed to prevail and the lesser law is supposed to be invalidated.
You make it sound like you need 6 years of legal education to grasp this simple concept. That's literally what "unconstitutional" means, you know. It's something that contradicts the constitution.
> You cannot say that a criminal cannot be jailed because he has the right of freedom
Except I said nothing of the sort. I said that some lesser law defines something to be a crime, and the constitution explicitly defines it to be a non crime. Therefore the lesser law is invalid and it is not a crime. He cannot be jailed because he is not actually a criminal.
> If you check with law specialists, nobody would agree with you, except a small minority.
And who are these "law specialists" you're citing? ... A criminal lawyer who sells a book on the subject. Her argument is literally that "nazism represents evil" and therefore society should ignore what's written on the law. The mere fact she used that argument shows that she's aware of what the constitution says. Ironically, your law expert admits that I'm right. She just thinks that my entire position should be straight up ignored because nazism is too evil. She knows it's unconstitutional but she wants it done anyway. Truly mind boggling.
Look, I don't even care. Go ahead and ban the nazis. I don't actually have a problem with that so long as you remember to apply the exact same standard to the communists. If you fail to do that, I'm gonna start asking hard questions.
> You should learn more about hermeneutics if you want to discuss law interpretation.
Nah, I got better things to do. Besides, this country doesn't actually have laws anyway. Whatever the supreme court judges say is the real law. Why learn all this nonsense when they just ignore it anyway? The judge-king himself makes an appearance in your article and lays down the law: "free speech does not authorize the abominable and criminal nazism apologia". There you go. There's no point in even discussing it anymore. What's the point of learning about the brazilian constitution? Just watch what this guy says on Twitter instead.
> Historical and social context, the law objective and other things are also taken into account.
I've seen this exact same argument so many times now, it's never convincing. The net neutrality laws immediately come to mind. "Oh no, see here, we worded it this way in order to ban the so called fast lanes, it's not meant to be used to stop the telecoms from charging you differently based on what services you use, even though the text of the law literally says that". That's just hilariously incoherent but what can you do? That's "law experts" for you. More like lobbyists.
Maybe write the law properly in the first place so that it's precisely worded and affords no misunderstandings. That way you don't need to discuss some nebulous "spirit" of the law.
> So, you are saying that (2) is worse than (1)!?
You bet I am. If you think otherwise then you must be unaware of the atrocities committed by communist regimes all over the world. Here you go:
You bet it's worse. Nazis eradicated others? Communists exterminated themselves through misery, famine and forced labor. They've killed more people than any other regime. Their own people, not some "other" ethnic group. About half of those many millions were killed by starvation. That's the nonsense you're defending.
You should talk to someone who lived in those former soviet bloc countries sometime. I've seen plenty of them posting on HN over the years. Go on, ask them about the means of production.
> Defending a nazi party would mean inciting discrimination.
Not really. Defending the existence of a political party means exactly that: defending its right to exist. If the party then engages in illegal conduct, then that's a separate crime that happens after the party has been officially recognized by the law. There's absolutely no contradiction there. You can easily avoid contradicting the brazilian constitution by allowing them to organize and then imprisoning them when they inevitably commit actual crimes. You'd have to actually care about the constitution to do that though. Apparently nobody does.
> I use the fact that the constitution says something, and that lesser laws say other things that are in complete opposition to it.
It is not an opposition! It is a way to handle conflicts between different rights! You are right: it is not a difficult concept, but you are failing to get it. You have the right of free speech. I have the right to do not be discriminated nor persecuted by color of skin or something like this. You use the free speech to argue for my killing or to share propaganda that incites my discrimination. We have a clear conflict between 2 rights. Laws will be written, and jurisprudence will be established about how to deal with the conflict. Just repeat blindly "a right is written in constitution" means very little when we are dealing with conflicts of this kind. You could argue for unconstitutionality of censoring if people were just being censored, without a previous conflict.
Moreover, the law for banning Nazism was challenged on ground of constitutionality, but the jurisprudence was stabilished since 2003, when supreme tribunal denied (by 8 votes against 3) to release from jail Siegfried Ellwanger, who published nazi books on Brazil. The supreme tribunal already judged this case 20 years ago.
> Not really. Defending the existence of a political party means exactly that: defending its right to exist. If the party then engages in illegal conduct, then that's a separate crime that happens after the party has been officially recognized by the law.
Wrong. The party itself is illegal based on the law against inciting discrimination. Its existence is by itself illegal, as well as defending its creation. If your party explicitly as your main program consist in discriminatory content, it is illegal.
> You use the free speech to argue for my killing or to share propaganda that incites my discrimination.
Nobody did that though? The only argument that was advanced was: since you allow the radical left (communists), then you must also allow the radical right (nazis).
Nobody ever advocated for your extermination. Nobody ever actually wanted an actual nazi party. The expected reaction was you'd come to your senses and realize that communists need to be treated in the exact same way as nazis. Unfortunately it turned into this fruitless argument.
> "a right is written in constitution" means very little
Looks like you finally got it. That's the point, you know.
> You could argue for unconstitutionality of censoring if people were just being censored, without a previous conflict.
That is what I've been arguing all along.
> If your party explicitly as your main program consist in discriminatory content, it is illegal.
LOL what could possibly be more discriminatory than communists? Genocide, classicide, politicide, democide, mass killings... Just enforced misery in general.
If that's your bar for banishing ideologies, you should probably get started on those communists already because it looks like you have a lot of work to do.
Your main objective appears to be inserting McCarthist ideology in the discussion. No, you do not censor Christianity because inquisition killed in the past. Nor do you censor capitalism because capitalists did mass killings in Indonesia. You censor nazism, not exactly because it killed, like practically any other "ism", but because its core tenets are exactly about discrimination: "some ethnical groups are better than others". The same is not true for Christianism, capitalism or communism.
Yes, my main objective is discussing the current communist threat in my country, not discussing some long gone defeated political party. The only reason it was brought up to begin with was for the sake of argument. The idea was to get you to realize that you need to treat communists the same way.
Obviously it didn't work because, as it turns out, your argument for censorship is not actually utilitarian. I could actually accept, and indeed have accepted, such an argument. That's not what you're saying though. You don't support censorship of nazism because the ideology is destructive. If that was the case, you'd also support the banishment of other ideas which are just as destructive if not more so. You've made it clear that you don't.
No, you support censorship because you literally believe nazism is wrongthink. You believe this when it comes to nazism specifically. It doesn't apply to any other equally or more destructive ideologies because they just don't contain the wrongthink you consider unacceptable. Communists pay you some lip service to political correctness and they have total free reign to wreak havoc in our society no matter how subversive they are.
If that's your position then that's the end of this discussion since there's nothing more I can say. I do hope you change your mind one day. There's nothing more totalitarian than believing in wrongthink.
They downvoted me when I said thank you. You made an extremely informative and well referenced post which detailed the infractions of the judges. I thanked you for it and saved the post. And I got downvoted for it.
I'll reiterate the point here by also citing the brazilian constitution:
> The expression of thought is free
> The expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific and communication activities are free, independently of censure of license
> The manifestation of thought, creation, of expression and of information, in any form and by any process or vehicle, shall suffer no restriction
> Any and all censorship of political, ideological and artistic nature is prohibited
That's what it says. Censorship is illegal. No doubt about it.
So how can we allow social media platforms to escape responsibility? Children are dying.