Elon Musk-controlled satellite internet provider Starlink has told Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel it will not comply with a court order to block social media platform X in the country until its local accounts are unfrozen.
Anatel confirmed the information to Reuters on Monday after its head Carlos Baigorri told Globo TV it had received a note from Starlink, which has more than 200,000 customers in Brazil, and passed it onto Brazil’s top court.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X, which is also owned by billionaire Musk, for lacking a legal representative in Brazil.
The move also led to the freezing of Starlink’s bank accounts in Brazil. Starlink is a unit of Musk-led rocket company SpaceX. The billionaire responded to the account block by calling Moraes a “dictator.”
I mean to be fair, Starlink is a satellite network.
Edit: this is a shitty Dad joke for those that are taking my comment seriously.
Most of you don’t deserve your humor license if you have one
To be more fair, Brazil is a sovereign country, Starlink is not.
What part of the joke aren’t you getting???
No I mean it’s literally a satellite network. It’s in orbit.
It’s above the law. Literally.
Edit: a lot of people whooshing this. How? It’s so fucking simple.
Orbit = Space. Brazil = Earth.
Space altitude > Brazil Altitude.
Orbit is literally above guys. Like come the fuck on. It’s a funny joke.
There is literally nothing literal about that
Its a joke. Literally.
Yes. There is. Orbit is a higher altitude than Brazil. Don’t play dumb.
We get the joke. You were being downvoted for your egregious misuse of the word ‘literal’
It’s not misuse. Come on. You can’t fucking honestly convince me that satellites orbit lower than Brazil.
Satellites orbit above Brazil, I agree with you. Your statement however was that satellites are above the rule of law. Given that the rule of law is a conceptual thing, that’s very much a metaphor, hence non literal.
Look, I get your joke, I’m not trying to belittle you or get into an argument or anything. I’m just explaining why you collected like 20 downvotes on it because you seem to want to know.
It’s ok to not pretend to be stupid to push a joke
Pretend?
Technically, I own a little piece of earth from the center of the core to space. I can’t control the skies above me, but I technically own them.
Brazil does not control the space in which the Starlink network operates. If Brazil wants to get in a pissing match over the operation of satellites that they can’t control, it will be about as effective as my efforts to stop 737s from overflying my house at 30,000 feet.
About all they can do is threaten the operations of other Musk properties operating within Brazil.
In a very real sense, Starlink is above the law. They can’t stop him from operating Starlink any more than we can stop foreign radio propaganda from being transmitted into our borders.
Edit: For the exact same reason that Starlink is above the law in North Korea, it is above the law in Brazil.
I’m not really interested in talking about sovereign nation powers with someone who got their political education from wikipedia.
Try elsewhere, thanks.
What a clever and well written response that clears up any speck of doubt in my mind about your capacity for communication.
🇰🇵
That’s not even my joke >.>
Yeah, and they can do in space whatever they want (probably). But if they want to operate on earth providing a service within a country, they have to abide by the law of this country or stay out of it.
It’s like American Internet companies have to follow EU law if they want to operate in the EU, even if the company itself or their servers are in the US. GDPR privacy laws is a good example.
Oh my god how is this joke that fucking difficult to understand
Ever thought of the possibility that your joke just isn’t good…
It’s not supposed to be >.>