SAO PAULO (AP) — Elon Musk’s satellite-based internet service provider Starlink backtracked Tuesday and said it will comply with a Brazilian Supreme Court justice’s order to block the billionaire’s social media platform, X.
Starlink said in a statement posted on X that it will heed Justice Alexandre de Moraes’ order despite him having frozen the company’s assets. Previously, it informally told the telecommunications regulator that it would not comply until de Moraes reversed course.
“Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” the company statement said. “We continue to pursue all legal avenues, as are others who agree that @alexandre’s recent order violate the Brazilian constitution.”
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
As someone who had a plan until I got hit in the face, I agree.
I didn’t even have a plan.
Some people plan to get punched in the face. Don’t kink shame.
We’re supposed to have plans?!
I drew a map of Zelda 1 once. Does that count?
Some footage of me trying to get caught up today
Pussy. Go on, Elon. Make your companies play chicken with a national government. I’m sure every other national government out there will definitely back you up, because making a company above the law (without paying the requisite bribes) is DEFINITELY something that national governments want to normalize!
Starlink satellites are (quite literally) above the law. Until Brazil develops a space force to go seize them out of orbit, it seems like Elon can do whatever the fuck he wants.
The links require a station on the ground, and services must be paid for monthly. Those are two things a local government can control pretty effectively.
Typical. Send the lawyers first to intimidate. Then get told you have no case. Then walk back tail between legs.
Sounds a bit like how he ended up with twitter in the first place
I love that he is so stupid that he didn’t realize he could back out of a legality by saying, “LOL JK.”
He’s got a huge clean ai dataset
All while loudly mouthing off
Hey happy Lemmy bday! Nice little cake!
Elon Musk is picking fights with everyone these days.
Everyone except fascists
Why would he pick a fight with the only group in the world that currently supports him?
Why would he pick fights with himself?
I wonder when he’ll go to rehab. He’s so unhinged.
He’s testing the limits of “fuck you” money expect “you” are national governments
Glad he got bitch-slapped on this one.
They can think it violates the Brazilian constitution all they like, my understanding is that the supreme court already weighed in on the issue and that’s the only opinion that matters in most countries.
What a braindead take.
You’ve never heard of biased, politically motivated supreme court justices? That’s… hard to believe. You should Google “Roe v Wade” and then check back. How can two different versions of a supreme court rule completely differently on the same issue if the underlying constitution hasn’t changed?
Read the relevant parts of their constitution, then check the supreme courts decision, and let me know how you think it makes sense.
What a braindead take
I love when people call out their own stupidity at the top of their comments
You’ve never heard of biased, politically motivated supreme court justices?
And the solution is a billionaire and his vanity project flagrantly ignoring the Supreme Court?
Alright. What is starlink’s legal path to overturn the decision? Whether the decision makes sense or not doesn’t change what the decision was.
Point isn’t whether it’s right or not. The point is that once the supreme court rules, there’s no “higher” court to take it to. The lower courts can’t rule differently on something explicitly ruled on already, and they can’t “overrule” the supreme court since they are explicitly “under” them. So regardless of what Starlink says, they aren’t going to change that, at least not any time soon. And X will either be dead, irrelevant, or significantly modified by the time the court changes enough to get them to change their decision.
I’m not fully in the loop, but wasn’t it just 1 judge and could be challenged to all of them, but then all of them sided with the 1?
If musk and X wanted to argue that in court, they could’ve appointed legal representation in Brazil. Instead, ol’ musky closed down the Brazil offices of X, like the braindead weirdo that he is.
As we say in my country, the person who burns his own butt, has to sit on the blisters.
How long until Elon throws a fit and fires people at Starlink until they ignore judge’s orders?
I’m guessing the Starlink investors had a chat with him about a potential breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit. That’s a stupid concept but Musk isn’t going to win if he deep sixes Starlink for his petty vendetta.
Eh, still feels like a good chance he’d let his ego get in the way of sanity
Oh i’m sure he argued with them. Starlink didn’t back down right away, after all…
Couldn’t they have done something similar at Twitter?
Twitter (aka X) probably has a different set of investors who may be happier using it to advance the cause of right wing extremism than the Starlink investors. That said: i thought Starlink was a publicly traded company but it appears it still isn’t so it’s just private investors there, too.
The employees don’t care, it’s the company that will get in trouble.
Dude finally found an immovable object outside of US.
Loser losing again…
#L
Am I the only one surprised by this? The rich bitch didn’t get away with something?
Why? Like, why for real, not just “this is why this is happening based on the law, bla bla bla”. The law doesn’t apply to this prick.
Not every judge can be bought.
No, believe me, they can. Everyone has a price. The question is how much Elon&Co. wants to offer.
I’d agree, everyone has a price; I’d also have to say not everyone’s is monetary.
Divorce :(
Their calculations for sucking up and paying Musk’s bills outweighed the costs of not doing business.
Sorry, I’m out of the loop. Why did Brazil ban Twitter in the first place?
They were asked to remove people from twitter who violated brazil misinformation laws (something they already do for india, saudi arabia, etc) and in response musk shutdown x offices in Brazil and refused to appoint a legal representative. Brazil then court ordered that X would be blocked since there was no legal way to deal with X.
Musk says its about free speech, when - because its something they already do in other countries - its clearly not about free speech at all.
Here’s a pretty good explanation: https://www.engadget.com/social-media/brazil-bans-x-for-refusing-to-comply-with-supreme-court-order-230247980.html
The one time I’ll side with musk: it’s in the fucking sky! You can’t block it! It’s not anyone’s jurisdiction.
What a dumb take. They are partaking in the Brazilian economy, are they not? They are accepting payment from Brazilians, providing them with telecommunication services. Distributing terminals. Do you think telecom operators should just have the option to completely ignore the local laws if one aspect of their business crosses an international border?
In the case of providing unblocked internet to the masses? Yes. No government has the right to cut people off from news they aren’t able to suppress.
Do you think a government should have the right to block its citizens from information? This isn’t China we’re talking about, although at this rate there will be a Great Firewall of Brazil in no time.
The government absolutely has the right to cut people off of certain information. If you disagree, try to share some classified secrets, or some child porn and see how well it goes down. The disagreement here is on where the line is drawn on what information falls under that umbrella, and as a sovereign democratic nation, that is Brazil’s call to make, not musk’s or yours. You might have an argument if this was a dictatorship/one party state, but it is not. Still, I’m sure you were equally vocal when Musk was censoring for those.
Doesn’t sound very democratic, but that word gets misused pretty often. Agree to disagree.
Democratic doesn’t mean libertarian. Democratic means that everyone gets a voice in deciding the direction things go. The people made their choice at the ballot box, and that was Lula, and Lula seems to be on board with the court’s decision and isn’t inclined to push legislation or executive action to change it. If people decide they don’t like the decision that’s been made, their government will adjust or it will be replaced by another at the ballot box. That’s exactly how it’s supposed to work.
“Supposed to work”
You’re correct—but…
Sure, it’s not as neat and clean as that and I acknowledge that, but at the end of the day, a tautological approach to either free speech or censorship is detrimental in either direction. Worries about censorship going too far ARE justified, but there ARE situations where it is necessary, and more exacting and precise public discussions about and decisions on what is fair game for censorship and what isn’t is the solution, not the understandably visceral reaction to censorship in general.
“Your rights stop were other people’s rights start” is Democracy.
The concept you have in mind were some people’s rights are endless and unhindered by other people’s rights - in other words, are supreme - is called Authoritarianism.
Authoritarianism is telling me I can’t go to a website.
I agree. The government should make it illegal for the people to use, and enforce that law.
Sounds familiar?
Sorry… you think the democratic thing would be to legalize child porn?
If the internet is being used to distribute child porn would you ban the internet?
You can’t just keep banning everything that is used to commit a crime, because criminals will find a way to use everything to commit crimes.
Yeah, that telegram porn accusation is pretty disappointing, but let’s not pretend for a moment that any government actually gives a shit about it. It’s being used to have conversations they can’t see, and that’s why they are using child porn—the silver bullet—to take them down.
If the internet is being used to distribute child porn would you ban the internet?
You would ban the site, and any company refusing to ban the site (FREE SPEECH!!!) would then also be banned.
isp’s
and even governmentsshould not be in charge of censoring content. child porn and state secrets and even twitter can be illegal without forcing an isp to censor peoples internet. for years I’ve seen lemmy and reddit fight for net neutrality and common carrier status, but as soon as elon is involved the hate boner takes over. lemmy is so weird.How exactly do you take down child porn without censoring it?
providing unblocked internet to the masses
Ask Ukraine about that supposedly unblocked access.
But that’s okay because Elon decided he was stopping Ukraine from being defeated by… sinking all of Russia’s ships.
I see this and say that Elon is a cunt. He should not have done this. It should NEVER be shut down and NEVER NOT be available.
Had blocking news and access to information been in the cards, as you describe, there would be another discussion. This is not it. The closest this comes is to block a linkaggregator. One that has been deemed to violate the laws in its area of business and being reluctant to take steps to rectify the situation.
This being the supreme court doing it does bring up the question of democratic decision making, which famiously has been proven by other countries recently. Although they also gave their president the power to remove themselves from office, if I’ve understood that particular debacle correctly.
That isn’t what is happening here. To do that the government of Brazil would have to block all internet providers to keep them from accessing need and information
Twitter isn’t news. Just rumors and mostly useless.
Is anything news anymore? It all seems like a bunch of speculation and rumors. Lots of “something could happen!” Don’t get me started on breakthrough scientific advancements. 🤪
The thing is, if it weren’t for Twitter, and other similar networks, things like Gaza would be squashed by the press.
Twitter is not a god given right.
I agree. The government should make it illegal for the people to use, and enforce that law. The sky internet is available to all.
You’ve completely lost the plot.
You never had a point.
Just because you refuse to listen to anyone it doesn’t mean they don’t have a point.
it’s in the fucking sky! You can’t block it! It’s not anyone’s jurisdiction.
You would find that all countries’ telecom and aerospace authorities disagree with this argument
A country’s airspace does not extend into space. A nation’s sovereignty over its airspace typically ends at the point where outer space begins, but there is no universally agreed-upon boundary between airspace and outer space.
Most commonly, the boundary is considered to be at the Kármán line, which is located at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles) above sea level. Everything below this is generally considered sovereign airspace, while everything above it is considered international space, not subject to any one country’s control.
🏅
Congrats, here’s a pedant pendant
It’s not pedantic to educate people on the Kármán line. Otherwise they would say inaccurate things like “everything above them is theirs, forever” which is obviously not true.
