Brazilian court orders suspension of X (opens in new tab)

Pretty hardcore even by the Russian standards. People aren't fined for using VPN here. That's some next level.

THIS JUST IN: Judge Moraes has backtracked on the removal of VPN apps from stores and phones. He has just issued a new court order.

But the ban and the fine of US$8,900 for users who use a VPN to access X-Twitter still apply!

Wow!

I had to check with local news, because I couldn't believe it. It checks out, he did impose the fine. (It's R$50k if somebody is as uninformed as I was.)

Is it normal that a judge can impose such blanket fines on users?

I think he's just making it up as he goes along now.

Wow. The VPN piece of this ought to be the nut graf. Wild overreach.

This is why side loading feature is important. Government shouldn't decide what should I do as per their whims.

I uploaded the ruling to the Internet Archive along with a copy of the document pushed through Google Translate

https://archive.org/details/Brazil-Court-Suspends-X/

Wow! Day by day, I appreciate more and more how precious the liberty and freedom we have in the US.

And shame on Canada and UK!

I expected the fine but he actually ordered remote removal of VPN apps from user devices? That's pretty fucked up if true. Wow

The text is weird. It kind of looks like they meant to write something else entirely.

The order does say Apple and Google must take down the VPN apps, but the way it's been written makes me think it was intended to order VPN apps to make Twitter/X unavailable, but someone misunderstood it or poorly expressed it.

Of course you can't expect judges to understand technical terms very well, but this guy has been dealing with tech long enough I feel like they should know this VPN text is bullshit.

For anyone curious:

    Proton VPN
    Express VPN
    NordVPN
    Surfshark,
    TOTALVPN
    Atlas VPN
    Bitdefender VPN

There are some pretty well known VPNs that are NOT on that list. Private Internet Access (PIA) for example is absent. Sure, it's used more for torrenting than anything else, but it's one of the most popular VPNs.

I thought maybe PIA just doesn't operate in Brazil, but they actually have a specific page dedicated to it:

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/vpn-server/brazil-vpn

Maybe that VPN is already illegal somehow in Brazil?

Microsoft and Apple operating systems include native VPN clients capable of connecting to many commercial and enterprise VPNs. Some routers and mobile hotspots include VPN clients, over which mobile phone traffic can be routed.

Arbitrary traffic can be tunneled over SSH to a low-cost VPS. Web browser extensions can tunnel traffic over SOCKS proxy. Tor/Tails can route traffic globally, without VPN.

Other network arms races: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41396206

Thank you very much for posting this document.

From what I'm reading, it also orders Apple and Google to DELETE VPN apps already installed on users' phones!

(I think this has been done in the past, in Brazil)

Are computer VPN apps also banned?

How are they planning to handle remote employees whose employers use VPNs?

That's not what is written in the document. VPN apps are compelled to block access to X in Brazil.

Since I can't edit my comment anymore, here's an update: The order to take down VPN apps from app stores has been suspended until further action by X or Elon Musk.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240830235848/https://www.cnnbr...

> Brazil is heading down a very dark path.

But predictable. Contempt of and banning speech because it’s disruptive to the regime (cynically “our democracy”) and harassing political opposition is commonplace for socialist and leftist governments.

Thank you for the link.

I uploaded the ruling to the Internet Archive along with a copy of the document I pushed through Google Translate (which may not be perfect).

https://archive.org/details/Brazil-Court-Suspends-X

> IN VIEW OF ALL THE ABOVE, given the necessary legal requirements, fumus boni iuris – consisting of the repeated, conscious and voluntary failure to comply with court orders and failure to pay the daily fines applied, in addition to the attempt to not submit to the Brazilian legal system and Judiciary, to establish an environment of total impunity and “lawless land” on social networks as well as

> Brazilians, including during the 2024 municipal elections, the periculum in mora – consisting of the maintenance and expansion of the instrumentalization of X BRAZIL, through the action of extremist groups and digital militias on social networks, with massive dissemination of Nazi, racist, fascist, hate speeches, anti-democratic speeches, including in the period leading up to the 2024 municipal elections,

> I DETERMINE:

> (1) IMMEDIATE, COMPLETE AND INTEGRAL SUSPENSION OF THE OPERATION OF “X BRASIL INTERNET LTDA” in the national territory, until all court orders issued in these proceedings are complied with, fines are duly paid and a legal or natural person representing the company in the national territory is appointed in court. In the case of a legal entity, its administrative representative must also be appointed. The President of the National Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL), CARLOS MANUEL BAIGORRI must be notified, including by electronic means, to IMMEDIATELY take all necessary measures to implement the measure, with this COURT being notified within a maximum of 24 (twentyfour) hours.

> (2) THE SUMMONS, to be complied with within 5 (five) days, and must immediately notify the court of the companies (2.1) APPLE and GOOGLE in Brazil to insert technological obstacles capable of making it impossible for users of the IOS (APPLE) and ANDROID (GOOGLE) systems to use the “X” application and remove the “X” application from the APPLE STORE and GOOGLE PLAY STORE stores and, similarly, in relation to applications that enable the use of VPN ('virtual private network'), such as, for example: Proton VPN, Express VPN, NordVPN, Surfshark, TOTALVPN, Atlas VPN, Bitdefender VPN; (2.2) Which manage backbone access services in Brazil, so that they insert technological obstacles in them capable of making it impossible for users of the “X” application to use;

> (2.3) Internet service providers, represented by their Presidents, for example ALGAR TELECOM, OI, SKY, LIVE TIM, VIVO, CLARO, NET VIRTUA, GVT, etc..., so that they insert technological obstacles capable of making the use of the application “X” unfeasible; and (2.4) That manage personal mobile service and switched fixed telephone service, so that they insert technological obstacles capable of making the use of the application “X” unfeasible

> (3) THE APPLICATION OF A DAILY FINE of R$50,000.00 (fifty thousand reais) to individuals and legal entities that engage in conduct involving the use of technological subterfuges to continue communications carried out by “X”, such as the use of VPN ('virtual private network'), without prejudice to other civil and criminal sanctions, in accordance with the law.

Well we'll see how much teeth this fine based on how much Glenn Greenwald (who can't resist ranting on twitter) winds up owing.

Ironic he abandoned the US citing its freedom laws only to wind up in this situation.

How can a court arbitrarily impose fines on users like this?

> Fining even users is a bit surprising

Not really. Using VPN is illegal in China. The police can put you in jail for using VPNs. Of course, there are very few cases like this even though many people use underground VPNs. This is typical behavior of an authoritarian state: the government reserves the rights to punish you when the situation is right.

Probably not going to be enforced, but just the same sort of an own goal.

Should have kept the focus on Elon Musk breaking the law.

How are you going to prove that TikTok is an intelligence and Psyop arm the PLA? The CCP does not respond to discovery in court cases of adversary nations.

In this case was X not explicitly asked to remove the illegal content? They could have simply complied with the local law and avoided this outcome. With their hardcore engineers I’m sure they could have come up with a region-locked solution.

Nah, the Brazilian government will lose this round. X is not going to cave, and the government doesn’t have the technological capacity to quickly spin up their own Great Firewall.

All Elon needs to do is have a legal representative in Brazil for his commercial venture.

He chose this.

In what way? Musk decides what's OK and not OK on twitter.

Twitter isn't a platform to promote democracy, it promotes what Musk wants.

Twitter has turned into hot garbage. For years my feed was pretty clean as it's almost exclusively tech. Gave it up recently as it was clogged with right-wing conspiracy, odd videos and random made up AI young women randomly following me occasionally.

I find the conflation of democracy and freedom of speech strange. They are entirely different things.

Uh, the judge tried to punish insurrectionist and Twitter agreed to comply and then just didn't as opposed to how they did in India or Turkey.

> I'm oversimplifying it, but the matter of a fact is that this judge and the political party in power are acting like fascists, they've even tried getting several popular VPN applications banned by asking Google and Apple to remove them.

The political party in power is socialist and defines itself as socialist. The president openly defines himself as a "socialist". [1]

So, they aren't acting as fascists, they are acting as socialists. Which, granted, is mostly the same in many aspects.

[1] https://jacobin.com.br/2023/10/lula-e-a-construcao-do-social...

I thought Lula was left wing.

VPN users are being fined as part of the order, a pretty massive fine.

These rulings are clearly arbitrary and have no basis on anything. They should be thought more like a Monarch's orders. Yes the monarch can any day order using Linux you will have to pay a big fine if he somehow gets angry on Linux.

They've even asked Google and Apple to take down several popular VPN apps from their stores and delete the apps from user's phones.

Walled garden are an orthogonal (although themselves non trivial) issues compared to an arbitrary court issuing random arbitrary monarchical summons. No amount of custom tweaked linux will protect you there.

The actual power is what a society will accept. At this point it seems like he can do anything a monarch could do in a kinda modern society.

The main issue here – and this is will eventually happen to every democracy – is that given the right incentives and conditions, _everything_ can be considered "legal" from a system perspective.

Because of authoritarian traumas post-WWII, most democracies evolved to a highly controlled executive, mostly by the judiciary – which is supposed to be monitored by the legislative.

But if you pack the court (the left is dominates Brazil in the last 40 years) and pay enough to the House (the executive controls the federal budget), you pretty much won the game (you are able to make your own rules).

It's amazing how someone from outside like Elon Musk is way, way more powerful than all elected representatives in Brazil, simply because he is somewhat independent from the political apparatus (the most voted congressman in the last election had been arbitrarily banned from social media, so votes really don't count).

The only way out is a combination of international pressure + local manifestations.

On paper, the Congress is perfectly capable of removing any supreme court minister for any kind of wrongdoing. They can't exactly reverse the decisions, but they can make them ineffective too.

On practice, well, they are clearly above the other powers, and only the supreme court plenarium can do anything about the individual judges.

I don't think it is about judicial systems and what not. The judge is only able to take dictatorial powers in Brazil because the society as a whole is not in a position to fight against it and kind of accepts it as something unfixable (lots of people might even support it). I doubt the Brazilian Constitution gives him such vast power.

Even in Brazil typically one person does not get to be judge and jury. Alexandre de Moraes is currently on the supreme federal court, and was previously president of the superior electoral court, which is the other top level court in Brazil. Note that De Moraes served on both courts at the same time. As part of his powers on the superior electoral court, he granted himself the authority to perform unilateral censorship through secret orders as part of his duties in the federal court. This is obviously not legal and totally absurd legal theory since it violates the separation of powers of these two courts. These powers should only be granted to the judicial system through new legislation or changes to the constitution.

This peer thing arises from a common law heritage. Brazil operates under civilian law. Totally different.

> that the Internet doesn't respect geographic boarder

There's a tonne of regulations already applying to the internet. Yes you can control it like that and many countries do. Twitter already had flags for filtering content based on local laws.

It's a cool overall idea, but no. It doesn't work like that in practice. Not for a person not very informed about traffic masking anyway.

Starlink cannot really operate as a "rogue ISP"; they have to license radio spectrum from Brazil and they have to share lawfully intercepted communications with Law Enforcement.

Starlink ceased operations in brazil and doesnt have a bank account. Musk tweeted that he will keep it for free in brazil because some remote schools use it.

I’m guessing starlink is already (or soon will be) ilegal to sell in Brazil.

So, assuming this judge won’t go as far as forcing people with starlink antennas to remove their existing installations, they will be the only ones able to use outside access. And that is an extremely low percentage of the population.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Twitter

The core facts are: Brazil demanded information regarding Brazilian users, and believed it was in their right to do so. X believed that the requests did not comply with Brazilian laws, and refused. Neither side yielded, so X closed up shop in Brazil, and, as a result, Brazil is blocking access to X.

Musk has been in a feud with this particular judge for a while now.

This article covers the beginning of the fight

https://apnews.com/article/brazil-musk-x-twitter-moraes-bef0...

And this one is an update on how both sides are acting kind of ridiculous

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/29/elons-standoff-with-braz...

Yes - there is a law that you need to have legal representation in Brazil and Musk is just flouting the law.

So shutdown it is for Musk

He appears to be really mad.

What's the structural link between X and Starlink?

Any Brazilian with a known handle, will be vulnerable the moment they post anything. It doesn't matter the quality of the VPN at all.

They don't need to. Selective enforcement is a key point of dictatorships. They can apply this fine to people they don't like. In general all such orders will have a chilling effect.

If they post

X already has an onion service I believe, check the x.com meta tags for "onion-location".

So that the judge can start fining TOR users?

I don't know about India, but in Brazil, the requests sent to X (Twitter) have no legal basis, that is, they are illegal by nature. The entire process that resulted in this blocking is secret and not even the defense lawyers had access to the investigation.

I am not sure why people keep bringing up Turkey or India as a justification for authoritarianism in Brazil. The orders for content takedowns in India were more obviously legal and were not done in secret, but in full public view with clear avenues for legal challenge.

On the other hand, in Brazil Alexandre de Moraes sits on two different courts at the same time and claims that one court gave him the power to unilaterally censor/ban/arrest people in secret from the other court. It is obviously a farce, even to the slightest investigation. Twitter/X is correct to challenge it since it isn’t legal within Brazil.

This is not the government

It's nice to see a government which is threatening to fine its citizens US$8,900 per day for using a website which was banned because it didn't remove the accounts of that government's political opponents?

I miss the days when religious zealots like you were against sex or whatever

If you want to live under a government with a lot of sharp teeth against capitalists, North Korea may be your ideal country.

Yes very nice to see a court acting as judge jury and executioner all at once and fining random VPN users random amounts without needing boring things like law. Maybe Plato was right and philospher kings work best.

/s

You should be embarrassed to be such a petty authoritarian cheerleader just because that power is being abused against someone you dislike and disagree with.

I'm relieved that at least HN is pushing back on opinions like these. If you really want to be scared, look at the reddit threads discussing this on technology, worldnews, etc. The young online generation is more than happy to embrace authoritarianism and censorship as long as it hurts someone they dislike.

Quite the claim and hyperbole. I’m fairly certain the exact opposite will happen because most people are not tech savvy and will not bother to circumvent the blocks in place. Some local alternatives will pop up and they’ll use that instead. Twitter is also no longer the town hall of the internet, or whatever people were calling it.