
Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours - NN88
http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/16/brazils-congress-has-shut-down-whatsapp-tonight-and-the-rest-of-the-social-web-could-be-next/?ncid=rss
======
hcarvalhoalves
The news is misrepresenting what is actually happening.

A judge ruled for a 48 hour ban of WhatsApp from telcos to try to coerce
WhatsApp into releasing private chat information for an ongoing criminal
investigation (wild guess: they want information from politically exposed
actors due to the recent corruption investigations). There are precedents, and
that's a tactic local judges are using to try to get cooperation from
international private companies.

This is the actual fact, but the article is conflating that with Marco Civil
and other regulatory attempts that have nothing to do with this particular
court ruling.

TL;DR TechCrunch publishes unchecked, alarmist news.

~~~
eduardordm
My wife is a judge and she is not alarmed. She is terrified. We are green card
holders and came back to the country 16 years ago. Tonight was the first time
we had a conversation about leaving this place for good.

~~~
adenot
I thought if you leave US for more than 3 (?) months you loose your green card
status.

~~~
eduardordm
6 months + extensions. A minor effort is required to keep the visa.

~~~
ghshephard
Be cautious, I had a close friend have their Green Card seized while crossing
the border back from Canada into the United States, even though he had
documented evidence that he had spent 95% of the previous three years _in the
United States_. He was a consultant, and traveled a lot, but thought he would
hang out in Vancouver, BC for a while. Even though he only returned to
Vancouver for a few days at a time, before going on the next engagement, and
all engagements were in the United States, with a US employer, (And he was a
Stanford Graduate) - they seized his GreenCard because his household goods
(Mattress/clothing), had left the country more than a couple years ago, and
used that as evidence of being away from the United States.

Lesson learned - Sometimes the border staff gets caught up on stupid
technicalities. Be aware of them, and don't use common sense.

------
tabacof
This is insane, this judge must be on a power trip. WhatsApp is now part of
Brazilian social life and economy. Everyone here is part of many groups of
friends, family or workmates, that is where most instant communication
happens.

In my company, our deployment engineers, who usually are on very remote places
with bad and unreliable internet, rely on WhatsApp. I'm not saying this is the
best practice, but this is simply the way Brazil works right now. Even the
mobile phone companies offer plans with free WhatsApp connection, because that
is what most people here care about. Another example: In Brazil, 9 in 10
doctors use WhatsApp to talk to patients
([http://www.cityam.com/230372/digital-health-wearables-and-
ap...](http://www.cityam.com/230372/digital-health-wearables-and-
apps-9-in-10-brazilian-doctors-use-whatsapp-to-talk-to-patients)).

To disregard all the people and businesses that rely on WhatsApp for whatever
reason is unbelievable. But this is not without precedent, once another
Brazilian judge blocked YouTube for a whole day because it refused to take
down a celebrity video.

This says a lot about the over-sized, inefficient, and stupid state we have,
always meddling and intervening.

~~~
andreyf
Seems to me like it might be WhatsApp that's on a power trip. What would an
American judge do if WhatsApp were to ignore a lawful subpoena?

~~~
morgante
> What would an American judge do if WhatsApp were to ignore a lawful
> subpoena?

Fine WhatsApp. Not compel all telcos to block it...

~~~
_delirium
Contempt of court in the U.S. escalates considerably beyond fines if the
company doesn't start complying quickly. The court can jail the company's
officers, issue an injunction forcing them to stop doing business, instruct
customs to blockade them at the U.S. border (in the case of companies selling
physical goods), and a range of other things.

~~~
morgante
Yes, that's all true.

But they don't compel third parties to block the company's app.

~~~
dogma1138
That's when it's a US company if it's foreign it will end up on the US trade
department sanction list which will blacklist them world wide not only in the
US and will prevent any entity which operates in the US from doing any sort of
business with them.

There is nothing that a Brazilian judge can do to whatsapp other than to harm
them financially cutting off 100m users even in a developing market sends a
clear sign.

~~~
morgante
Facebook has an office in Brazil. I don't really understand why they couldn't
just levy financial penalties, since Facebook does actually have a business
presence in the country.

~~~
dogma1138
WhatsApp and Facebook are still separate legal entities as far as i know, the
subpoena was issued to WhatsApp it didn't comply they've issued a court order
to block it in order to compel it to comply. If a US company would not comply
to a court order, a US judge can prevent the company from operating at all by
freezing all of their assets and halting all of their operations.

------
rmdoss
Can confirm whatsapp is down for some friends in Brazil.

However, the real reason is not for what Techcrunch is saying.

The issue is that WhatsApp didn't want to cooperate with the federal police
and release chat information from some criminals. According to some sources
there, they followed all due process and WhatsApp ignored.

As a retaliation, to show that WhatsApp has to comply with Brazilian local
laws when storing data from Brazilians using the service in Brazil, they
banned WhatsApp for 48 hrs.

A lot less alarmist.

~~~
morgante
> some criminals

You mean suspected criminals, right?

It still seems pretty reactionary. The solution isn't to block an entire
service.

~~~
lagadu
> It still seems pretty reactionary. The solution isn't to block an entire
> service.

Why not? If they're not complying with court mandated orders, then the court
is empowered to enact any legal (in Brasil) measures to coerce cooperation out
of the offender. If whatsapp wants to operate there they have to follow the
law; they stopped following the law, they're no longer welcome.

~~~
scrupulusalbion
Perhaps I am overstepping my bounds, but to me it seems that using coercion to
get information from a witness (Whatsapp appears to be in the position of a
witness) is a recipe for getting unreliable information when the witness.

Whatsapp seems to be in a position that it could retaliate against this
Brazilian judge by giving false testimony. Afterall, Whatsapp and the parties
to the messages are probably the only people who know what was said in those
messages; Whatsapp could modify the messages such that they exonerate the
accused. If the judge has played his only trump card by blocking usage of
Whatsapp in Brazil, then Whatsapp knows the absolute worst that can happen by
lying about what was said in the messages. Worse, the Judge may not even be
able to prove what the messages actually contained.

------
reubenmorais
Telegram reports 1.000.000 new users 4 hours after the block started,
1.500.000 new users 1 hour ago:
[https://twitter.com/telegram](https://twitter.com/telegram)

~~~
newman314
Ugh. I wish Signal had the UX to compete with Telegram so that people would
use Signal instead.

~~~
NN88
is it that much better?

~~~
jmcphers
Yes. Signal has perfect forward secrecy. There's no way any government could
compel them to release private chat information: they are literally unable to
do so.

~~~
Splines
Even so, a government could still block them until they realized it's futile
(or something). The end effect is in their favor: users to move to other
platforms that are not as secure.

------
jrapdx3
Never realized that the political scene in Brazil was as crazy as the article
portrays. Makes the US election campaigns look downright tame. As bizarre as
some candidates' ideas seem to be, hard to imagine how judges or US congress
would get away with attempting the same things.

If provisions like those in the article persist, predictably the predominantly
young users of social media will protest loudly, I would think the resulting
unrest would be too big a liability for the judges and politicians.

A while back I knew a guy who worked for a US company involved with setting up
inventory and telecommunications software for businesses. Having traveled to
Brazil to assist with installing the systems, he described the extremely
convoluted regulatory environment down there, and how difficult that made it
to get anything done.

While the whole affair is hard to understand, the basis for picking on
particular targets (e.g., WhatsApp) doesn't make sense. Unless _all_ such
services are banned it only punishes the particular providers for no good
cause. Speculating out loud about their target selection is unproductive, but
possibly someone has more actual info about it.

So I guess like politics anywhere, what they do know well is how to shoot
themselves in the foot. Until it's realized what they've done it will cause a
lot of trouble for legitimate enterprises, let alone the massive population so
negatively affected.

Edit: In the time it took me to write this comment, a bunch of people have add
comments about the situation. Wow, that was fast...

------
misja111
I'm confused. As far as I know WhatsApp does not archive any messages on its
servers. Messages are only kept there temporarily until they are delivered to
the recipient and then they are deleted.

This is also what WhatsApp states in its legal documentation:
[https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/](https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/) : "The
contents of messages that have been delivered by the WhatsApp Service are not
copied, kept or archived by WhatsApp in the normal course of business."

Furthermore, messages are end-to-end encrypted. So how could WhatsApp comply
to the judge's demand?

~~~
cnvogel
> Furthermore, messages are end-to-end encrypted.

I don't think so. WhatsApp states in their FAQ: "WhatsApp communication
between your phone and our server is encrypted."
[[https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/21864047](https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/21864047)]

------
rccrv
It wasn't Congress that decided that.

It is a single judge that gave an order to block the service for 48 hours.

It can be reversed if another judge decides the "liminar" (I don't know how to
say this in English, it's a temporary decision) shouldn't been given.

~~~
jessaustin
"Injunction", perhaps?

~~~
rccrv
That is a good equivalent and it gives some idea of what happened for those
familiar with the concept. Thanks for the clarification.

------
graeme
That's crazy. I was in Brazil for a month. _everybody_ was on whatsapp.
Facebook a distant second for message volume.

SMS wasn't even on the radar.

------
silveira
I'm in the US and my family is in Brazil. I relly on WhatsApp over 3G/4G to
comunicante with them as they are usually without access to faster internet
(DSL/cable). I read about the blockage a few hours ago and made me concerned
because if anything happens that's the most reliable channel I have.

Then I receive a message from my brother saying he was going to the hospital
(on WhatsApp, just before they cutted it off). Fortunately he had time to tell
me he is fine.

My other brother is in a ship, almost same connectivity problems.

I know that there are workarounds, other applications, vpns, IP masking etc.
But WhatsApp is something that my parents and brothers can use.

~~~
obvio171
I bet there are tons of hospital staff who use WhatsApp in Brazil every day to
coordinate mission-critical stuff, in which case this absurd move is putting
people's lives at risk.

------
NN88
500,000 users signed up for Telegram in 3 hours

[https://twitter.com/telegram/status/677278277657055232](https://twitter.com/telegram/status/677278277657055232)

------
fernandomm
The real reason is that WhatsApp refused to provide information about a PCC
member.

PCC is the largest criminal organization in Brazil. It's involved in several
criminal activities like drug dealing and gun trafficking. It was also
responsible for "closing" Sao Paulo city some years ago forcing people to stay
at their homes as well as killing hundreds of cops (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primeiro_Comando_da_Capital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primeiro_Comando_da_Capital)
).

The judge tried to obtain the information from WhatsApp for several months but
it was simply ignored. Blocking WhatsApp was one of the last options that she
had to try to obtain the information.

Here is more information from a reliable source ( it's in portuguese ):
[http://www.conjur.com.br/2015-dez-16/bloqueio-whatsapp-
pivo-...](http://www.conjur.com.br/2015-dez-16/bloqueio-whatsapp-pivo-homem-
solto-stf-mes)

~~~
julioneander
It scares to think that a single decision from a judge can suspend the most
widely used communication service in Brazil like that. The whole nation was
affected by a decision that concerns to a few people only.

------
speeder
I am from Brazil, and although bizarre decisions happened before, I can say
that this time they actually went through with it, and I can't talk to my
psychologist (I only communicate with her with WhatsApp, I never considered
that the government would ever actually shut it down).

As for the article it is one of the most bizarrely biased articles I ever
read, spouting some information that are outright lies.

Example: it says that Marco Civil law was an example of the congress favouring
internet openness, that is an outright lie, the judge that banned WhatsApp for
48 hours, used Marco Civil to do it, if Marco Civil had never passed, WhatsApp
would not be banned today.

Another innacuracy is saying that it is a "conservative" congress dominated by
"evangelical extremists" and "military apologists"

The biggest bloc in the congress was allied with the leftist president in the
elections, and still is mostly allied with said president. (the exception is
"PSC", that is a socialist christian party, they tend to ignore the president
wishes a lot, still it is 13 deputies out of 79 in that bloc)

Second biggest, is indeed right-leaning, but their policies resemble US
democratic party of the 90s, instead of true conservatism.

Third bloc is dominated by a party with no political leanings to left, or
right (they only do whatever it takes to stay in power, and have left and
right politicians in their ranks). The vice-president is of that party, and
they are in "opposition" only because they want the vice-president to take
over.

Fourth is PT, with 59 seats, it is the president party, and is named "workers
party" and has many outright communist people in it.

Next 3 groups are socialist, then there is the democrats party, that has
policies like US democrats, then the rest of the parties are mostly socialist
too.

In total there are from 512 lawmakers, 108 are "conservative".

Also, I've been following the votes on the Uber ban on Brazil, almost in all
cases left wing parties that voted to ban Uber (and some even proposed to not
only ban Uber, but make a law that make apps that call regular taxis to send
lots of personal information to the governmens, including full GPS-tracked
route of the person while inside the cab).

Meanwhile the big bloc that is "conservative" (the one that on my list is on
the second biggest bloc in the congress) is the one that regularly vote
against laws that restrict freedoms.

Still, our congress is awful, and is indeed proposing (and sometimes passing)
lots and lots of bullshit laws.

~~~
iamcurious
>only communicate with her with WhatsApp, I never considered that the
government would ever actually shut it down

So you got her number on your cellphone which means you can call and text. You
can talk to her, not for free but a few messages should be enough to arrange
for another free service.

~~~
speeder
Yep, I am installing Telegram now.

------
kbart
Terrible news, but it proves once again that we need decentralized, end-to-end
encrypted OSS communications to be safe.

------
necessity
From someone living in Brazil, this article is a clickbait full of
misinformation.

First off, we are nowhere near "shutting down social web". WhatsApp was
shutdown by a court order because they did not comply with a subpoena to hand
over information from a user in July and August. I recently submitted a link
with a local (Brazilian) newspaper explaining the issue.

>If Brazil’s conservative Congress gets its way, they’re going to take down
the entire social web as we know it, with bills circulating through the
legislature to criminalize posting social media content and to allow the
government to spy on its citizens.

Conservatives are not the only ones trying to censor the internet in here,
absolutely every politician wants it.

>It’s an about-face from last year, when President Dilma Rousseff approved
Marco Civil, a groundbreaking Internet “Bill of Rights”, as a response to the
Snowden revelations that the NSA was spying on Brazil. The landmark bill,
Brazil’s first internet legislation, protects net neutrality, user privacy and
freedom of speech.

On the contrary! Marco Civil threatens user privacy (more below), and the "net
neutrality" part has lead to just the same that happened today: Mobile
companies were forced to shutdown their "free WhatsApp and Facebook" plans,
making millions get blocked from WhatsApp[4]. Anyway, back to the privacy
issues, article 11 of the text[1] is the more worrying one. Some highlights:

§ 2º A autoridade policial ou administrativa poderá requerer cautelarmente que
os registros de conexão sejam guardados por prazo superior ao previsto no
caput. § 4º O provedor responsável pela guarda dos registros deverá manter
sigilo em relação ao requerimento previsto no § 2º

It says basically that police can require records of visited CONTENT without a
court order and the ISP is required to supply that without informing the user.
Somewhere else in the text it forces ISPs to store user history for a year. If
the text really wanted to protect user privacy it would say something about
cryptography, which isn't mentioned anywhere in the text.

Article 2 says there must be a "social purpose" for websites and that gov. may
take websites down if it feels it doesn't serve the public interest. Brazilian
govt. already has a history of censoring YouTube and Facebook videos involving
politicians, judges or celebrities[5][2][3].

[1]
[http://www.camara.gov.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra?...](http://www.camara.gov.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra?codteor=912989&filename=PL+2126/20)

[2] [http://oglobo.globo.com/tecnologia/para-nao-sair-do-ar-no-
br...](http://oglobo.globo.com/tecnologia/para-nao-sair-do-ar-no-brasil-
facebook-remove-posts-ofensivos-10244954)

[3] [http://www.conjur.com.br/2012-ago-08/google-retirar-ar-
video...](http://www.conjur.com.br/2012-ago-08/google-retirar-ar-video-
ofensivo-vereador-pena-multa)

[4] [http://gizmodo.uol.com.br/tim-claro-twitter-
gratis/](http://gizmodo.uol.com.br/tim-claro-twitter-gratis/)

[5]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PYQktiGLhw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PYQktiGLhw)

~~~
NN88
>First off, we are nowhere near "shutting down social web". WhatsApp was
shutdown by a court order because they did not comply with a subpoena to hand
over information from a user in July and August. I recently submitted a link
with a local (Brazilian) newspaper explaining the issue.

You make it sound like thats ok?

------
outworlder
To put this in perspective, it would be as if a single judge in the US managed
to shutdown all SMS for 48 hours, in the whole country. ( _)

Because, you see, SMS is too expensive in Brazil. So people resort to WhatsApp
instead.

(_) It doesn't matter if SMS is not controlled by a single company, the block
has to be enforced by all internet and cellphone operators in the entire
country.

------
ex3ndr
Right now we ([https://actor.im/br/](https://actor.im/br/)) are trying to
launch free and open alternative to WhatsApp/Telegram with Open Source
community in Brazil.

~~~
tetrep
why not textsecure? it's free and open source.

~~~
ex3ndr
Text secure is a cool application, but they are not focused on people. Very
different goals of projects.

~~~
nindalf
Not focused on people? That doesn't... make much sense.

------
jld89
WhatsApp didn't break any US laws. If whatsapp doesn't follow Brazils laws it
can't break them. However Brazil is in its full rights to ban it if it
considers it isn't coherent with the local laws.

It's simple really.

------
gjrlkgrelmgr
If you go ahead and read the article, you'll realize that it's more about
Facebook complaining their business will be more heavily regulated in Brazil
than outright censorship.

~~~
rbanffy
That and that Facebook may have to comply with valid court orders. How
outrageous a judge telling what Facebook should do.

~~~
aianus
A judge in a corrupt third-world country can say whatever he wants, I don't
think Facebook should blindly be following court orders from overseas.

~~~
Tomte
"Overseas" in that context would be the US, right? :-)

We have exactly that problem with Facebook and other big US companies in
Europe (Uber comes to mind): they act in Europe (and do damage here), but hide
in the US. Oftentimes not even replying to court orders, because hey, what can
a lowly regional court judge from Germany do, right?

If you want to play here, comply with our laws. If you don't, then don't be
surprised if your business is shut down.

I can totally understand the attitude of the Brazilian judge, even if the
result is terrible. But suddenly he is paid attention! Chapeau!

~~~
aianus
Why should a lowly regional judge in Germany (or the US for that matter) be
allowed to meddle with a national or global communications network? There must
be millions of judges in the world, many of whom are corrupt, power-hungry, or
just plain stupid. It would be silly for Facebook, Google, etc. to blindly
obey each one of their ramblings.

Edit: s/shut down/meddle with/

~~~
Tomte
We make sure our justice system is not corrupt. You don't get to ignore our
laws, just because you conveniently hint to corruption.

If you feel our country is too corrupt to make business in, great, stay away.

Why should we allow extra-legal, non-elected company managers from abroad to
trump our constitutional, legal and parliamentary-approved laws?

~~~
aianus
I'm sure you believe your country's laws are fair, just, constitutional, and
parliamentary-approved. However, so do Thai people believe about their laws
against insulting their King. Do you think Facebook should be in the business
of censoring posts insulting the Thai King just because some judge there gives
them a court order?

I maintain that Facebook should, in general, ignore foreign court orders and
just do what's right. At the risk, of course, of being blocked entirely in
that country.

~~~
Tomte
If they want to do business there, sure. The alternative stands: get out of
the country.

You maintain that Facebook should, in general, follow _your_ legal system.

Do you believe that America and only America is "fair, just, constitutional,
and parliamentary-approved"?

That's basically American exceptionalism at its best.

~~~
msh
So if the US wants info on users of a German app who have no servers or
offices in the US it should just give it to them? Even if the offense they are
suspected of is not illegal in Germany?

My point is that Brazil should follow legal procedures and have a American
judge issue a supena. That's what a MLAT is for.

~~~
germanier
I'm sure the Brazilian judge followed Brazilian legal procedures. That's the
entire point of being a Brazilian judge. There might be other means to achieve
a goal but that doesn't mean what happened isn't legal.

In your example, if that German app was targeted to US users (e.g. by
localization and marketing) then yes, they should follow US laws. That's a
test German courts use to determine whether they have jurisdiction in the
digital world and I think that's fair and should be applied in the other
direction as well. If they don't want to or can't (e.g. by contractual
obligations or German law) they shouldn't act surprised if the US doesn't
allow US business to trade with them.

~~~
msh
I think you are mixing up the countries in your example.

~~~
germanier
Sorry for the confusion, I clarified something above.

------
threatofrain
Does this mean it's illegal for a company to create a zero-knowledge
communication network in Brazil? Or encryption without backdoors?

~~~
zorked
No.

------
expadaden
you can always use temporary free and reliable vpn provider to unblock
WhatsApp or any other websites and apps.... try
[https://www.hashtagvpn.com](https://www.hashtagvpn.com)

------
milkers
It even didnt happen in Turkey. The country which loves bans.

------
shmerl
Use XMPP + Jingle. How are they going to shut down that?

------
HaseebR7
What's up with capitalizing every first letter ? I thought "Whatsapp Tonight"
is some new service Whatsapp is providing that I didn't know of.

------
free2rhyme214
Time to switch to Telegram!

------
bitJericho
Amazing how easy it is to tell a tc article by the title. When is hn going to
ban tc?

------
bbarn
This is the place the Olympics are going to be this summer. I can't help but
hope the people use it as a stage to protest, but would imagine the media
would largely ignore it.

------
dmingod666
Switched to hacker news a year back, Never visit techcrunch.. Best decision.
On an unrelated note, just hate their 'apple is the center of the universe'
line of thought..

