
WhatsApp is back online in Brazil - natthub
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102814103934951
======
lucb1e
> the idea that everyone in Brazil can be denied the freedom to communicate
> the way they want is very scary in a democracy

Says the person (in name of the company, I assume) whose company blocks things
they don't "like", such as messages containing telegram.org or telegram.me[1].

Now Facebook is not a democracy and they can block and censor pretty much any
message they like, but now they go on to tell Brazil how it should run its
judicial system. That's like giving people free beer and then asking them to
take up pitchforks and come along to put some pressure on a third party you
don't like very much.

[1] [https://i.snag.gy/9KBPGR.jpg](https://i.snag.gy/9KBPGR.jpg)

~~~
hoorayimhelping
There is a huge difference between "the government of Brazil denying everyone
the freedom to communicate the way they want" and "facebook not auto-linking
to a competitor's site in a chat program." You're comparing a government
making communication through a specific (and popular) channel illegal, and a
company not providing a link to a website as they send your message to your
recipient.

I know Hacker News enjoys getting riled up at Facebook, but come on. You're
not comparing apples to apples, you're not even comparing food to food, it's
like saying this rock isn't like this sandwich.

~~~
rmc
Facebook/WhatsApp is trying to have it both ways. Either it's a for profit
private company (and it can do things like that), or it's an important
communication medium for a democracy (and access should be open).

When it comes to blocking telegram, Facebook/WhatsApp wants to be the provate
for profit company. When some judge blocks WhatsApp, suddenly they're an
important service for a democracy.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Either it's a for profit private company (and it can do things like that),
> or it's an important communication medium for a democracy (and access should
> be open).

Blocking telegram is _classic_ bone-headed stupidity. It's like an invitation
for government lawyers to burrow under your skin and lay their eggs.

But inconsistency only shows that one of their positions is wrong, and it's
that one.

~~~
blowski
Paying an appropriate amount of tax in the countries in which it operates
might be another. All that democracy stuff costs money and has to be paid for
somehow.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
It isn't a company's job to pay more taxes than it owes, it's a country's job
to set sensible taxes.

Stop trying to tax "corporate income" for multinational entities that can
trivially shift profits into other countries, and instead tax the thing they
actually do in your country.

And if they don't actually do anything in your country, what makes them owe
you anything?

~~~
blowski
But Facebook can't have it both ways. They can't pay almost no tax and then
call themselves defenders of democracy.

------
lucastx
We dodged this bullet but here in Brazil but RIGHT NOW there is a much more
dangerous risk: with the Parliamentary Commission on Cybercrimes (CPI dos
Crimes Cibernéticos / CPICIBER) report a "combo" of bills will get "fast
track" on Congress and, to list some things, expand data retention, allow
access to IP addresses without warrant and allow judges to block "illegal"
content, including copyright violations much like DMCA does (they use the
"notice-and-staydown" terminology).

More details here:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/battery-dangerous-
cybe...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/battery-dangerous-cybercrime-
proposals-still-hang-over-brazil)

[https://www.accessnow.org/access-now-delivers-petition-
brazi...](https://www.accessnow.org/access-now-delivers-petition-brazil-
cybercrime-commission/)

[https://theintercept.com/2016/04/26/brazilian-cybercrime-
bil...](https://theintercept.com/2016/04/26/brazilian-cybercrime-bills-
threaten-open-internet-for-200-million-people/)

The final voting will happen TOMORROW, 9 a.m. Brasilia time (GMT-3), 5am in
California I guess. If you can help raise awareness and use EFF's Action
Center to message the parliamentaries through Twitter and Facebook around that
time, it would help a lot.

[https://act.eff.org/action/fight-back-against-brazil-s-
draco...](https://act.eff.org/action/fight-back-against-brazil-s-draconian-
new-cybercrime-bill)

In portuguese, this is the best starting point on the debate (disclaimer: I
work on antivigilancia.org):

[https://antivigilancia.org/pt/cpiciber/](https://antivigilancia.org/pt/cpiciber/)

~~~
marcosdumay
Your page isn't clear, what exactly happens tomorrow? Is it the final voting
on the CPI? Or is there some law project under vote right now?

~~~
lucastx
I'll work on a quick article today to explain this and adapt the page to
reflect that. Thanks for the tips. Answering you quickly (I'm preparing dinner
:-)):

\- Tomorrow, the CPI decides their final report (after three drafts and a
couple separate patches) on all the inquiries the commission made the last
months. This report includes "recommendations" to some existing draft bills
and proposes a number of other bills.

\- Parliamentaries presented "destaques" that will be voted separately and may
supress the "IP blocking for illegal content" and "notification-based removal
of illegal content" bills.

\- The final report as of now is the first link with a small patch on the
Projeto de Lei 1.6 made by the second link.

[http://www.camara.gov.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra?...](http://www.camara.gov.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra?codteor=1452665)

[http://www2.camara.leg.br/atividade-
legislativa/comissoes/co...](http://www2.camara.leg.br/atividade-
legislativa/comissoes/comissoes-temporarias/parlamentar-de-
inquerito/55a-legislatura/cpi-crimes-ciberneticos/documentos/outros-
documentos/nota-de-esclarecimento-sub-relatores-deputados-sandro-alex-e-
rafael-motta)

EDIT TO APPEND:

TL;DR: The two bills that we may realistically remove through the help of
friendly parliamentaries tomorrow are the ones about illegal website blocking
(ISP blacklisting) and content removal through notification; both open the
door for criminalizing remixes and using copyright infringement for
censorship.

------
guhcampos
This is hardly the first or the last time this kind of things happens in
Brazil.

Long story short, this is exactly the same standoff that happened recently in
the US between the FBI and Apple: the authorities want information from a
suspect phone, and assume they can get it from a company, in this case
WhatsApp. A warrant is issued, and the company refuses to comply.

The big difference is: WhatsApp has been a major headache for telecom
companies in Brazil, especially since the arrival of voice calls. With Wifi
everywhere, people have been avoiding expensive traditional calls and just
using WhatsApp to call for free.

For that reason, the telcos in Brazil are more than happy to comply with court
when it comes to WhatsApp blocks, so they do it right away, no questions
asked.

~~~
deleted_soon
The thing is, WhatsApp is not just refusing to comply - they can't comply,
since they don't retain message data. In addition, now that all messages are
encrypted end to end, it will be impossible for them to comply in the future.

~~~
motoboi
Well, if they just had responded to the judge order explain that or explaining
anything, maybe the judge would consider it.

We came to this point because whatsapp do not exist as a company in Brazil and
simply ignored the court order.

Know they probably considered such orders may happen again and decided to
respond to the order.

~~~
simonh
WhatsApp have testified about this before the Brazilian Congressional
Committee on Cyber Crimes. There's no chance the judge isn't aware of it.

~~~
rmc
So if they're willing to send people to Brazil once, why not again?

~~~
saint_fiasco
It did not work the first time.

------
chatmasta
> the idea that everyone in Brazil can be denied the freedom to communicate
> the way they want is very scary in a democracy

If companies like Facebook were not funneling everybody onto centralized
platforms, it would be harder for an ISP to deny that freedom.

The centralization of communication platforms is a bigger problem than any ISP
censorship. That they have a target to shutdown at all is the real issue.

~~~
davesque
Agreed. Zuckerberg's little victory speech in this post reminds me of the kind
of talk he used in defending his free basics plan. I get a little tired of
people with heavy business interests weighing in on "democracy" and "freedom."

------
rev087
I'm Brazilian, my phone got bombarded with "<user> just joined Telegram"
notifications today.

~~~
voltagex_
Hopefully it's the user that you expect:
[https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/72646884513381171...](https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/726468845133811717)

------
tomash
Facebook once banned me for 24h just for sending my friend a link (via
messenger) to animgif containing female boobs. (together with ban FB expired
all API access tokens of my apps) Zuckerberg positioning himself as champion
of democracy and unrestricted communication is ridiculous.

------
molecule
"Brazilian appellate judge rescinds WhatsApp block"

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/brazilian-
judge-b...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/05/brazilian-judge-blocks-
whatsapp-for-72-hours-but-it-still-works-over-vpn-wi-fi/)

~~~
gtirloni
Now Facebook appointed Matt Steinfeld (Facebook's Head of Communications) to
discuss the matter. The judge must be pleased.

------
antisthenes
Out of curiosity, what did Brazil use before WhatsApp existed?

It seems strange to me that 1 app can capture such an overwhelming majority,
because it's just a client, of which there have always been dozens if not
hundreds.

~~~
EuAndreh
IMHO, the biggest selling point of WhatsApp for brazilians is that it works as
offline as it is possible. All received data is stored locally.

Even if you're offline and send a message, it stores it locally and send it
when connection becomes available.

Since the majority of WhatsApp users in Brazil have access only to low quality
internet connection, this becomes a major issue.

~~~
mirimir
So it's not at all about privacy?

That's interesting. But it makes sense, I suppose.

It's just the vocal minority that push privacy in WhatsApp. But it is good to
see Facebook supporting private communication. Apple and Facebook, who would
have thought?

~~~
danieldk
In the case of Apple it's much more obvious, when most of your revenue comes
from hardware (and now also 'services') you don't have to mine your user's
data for ads.

WhatsApp introducing Signal-based end-to-end encryption after it was acquired
by Facebook was definitely surprising. I guess they can always switch to on-
device profile creation :p. I trusted Whatsapp as a separate entity (low
costs, yearly fee). Facebook, not so much.

------
notliketherest
This follows a nation wide uproar. Definitely not a popular decision in a
country that relies on this service, however the decision was made. My wife is
Brazilian and you should see her Facebook news feed...they're blaming the same
government they want to throw out of office - not a great timing on their
part.

~~~
icebraining
On whose part? This wasn't a decision by the government.

------
hudell
"Brazilians have been leaders in connecting the world and creating an open
internet for many years. I hope you make your voice heard now and demand
change"

I think he didn't word this right.

------
smegel
What does the USA do about WhatsApp? Do they really tolerate end to end
encryption they cant subpoena the company for...or does the NSA have a big fat
pipe into the WhatsApp data-center?

~~~
caf
If the end-to-end encryption is working as designed then "a big fat pipe into
the WhatsApp data-center" would be of no help.

For high enough value targets the NSA is probably happy to compromise the
endpoints.

~~~
saganus
Can't it be e2e encryption with WhatsApp keeping a copy of the private keys?
or does e2e enc implicitly means the private keys are never exchanged?

~~~
deleted_soon
WhatsApp wouldn't keep the private keys. That being said, this system could
still be hacked - when the clients exchange public keys, you insert yourself
in the middle, provide your own public keys to each client, and mediate
between the two clients, which gives you access to the unencrypted messages.

~~~
nickik
That only works in transport if the connection is not pinned. I don't know if
they do pin, but they should.

If they pin then the NSA would have to actually have access to the data center
and doing that much without getting noticed is quite hard.

~~~
deleted_soon
True, but I bet that the NSA could force WhatsApp to issue certificates for
fake keys. Obviously can't do that without being noticed, but they could still
use it to spy on specific users if they wanted.

------
camillomiller
Once again the bigger problem we really have to face is the corporatization of
the defense of civil rights

------
JackC
Public service announcement: if you install Orbot, you can route traffic for
any Android app through Tor.

[https://www.torproject.org/docs/android.html.en](https://www.torproject.org/docs/android.html.en)

------
educar
I hope the govt sees the reliance on this service and does something positive
about it (for example, build their own or tie up with some company). Such
massive dependence on a company with no contracts is going to end up in a mess
later.

~~~
ptaipale
I do not understand this approach. A market solution works and is popular, so
the government should step in and try to develop something better with
"contracts"?

~~~
educar
It's just a form of standardization by the government in terms of the
technical protocol. Just like EU has some with OOXML and ODF. This ensures
that other players can come in and build alternative clients. Without
regulations, it's going to be a nation relying on a company. I don't think
that is good.

~~~
icebraining
The EU has been trying to enforce open formats _for their own use_ ; it
doesn't try to force private individuals or companies to use them among
themselves.

(It also failed; as of 2014, .doc was still used more than .odt by orders of
magnitude in the major institutions - Commission, Council and Parliament)

------
source99
And now Facebook is down for me entirely.

------
walrus01
gggggggooooooaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllll

------
smaili
I'm fairly certain Brazil didn't just wake up one day and decide to reactivate
WhatsApp's service...

So my first reaction to this news is what did Facebook/WhatsApp/Zuckerberg do,
or possibly even give up, in order to change Brazil's mind.

~~~
readams
There is only one specific judge that has ordered the block both times it has
occurred. Both times it has been overturned when appealed to other judges in
Brazil. It's not "Brazil" that made this decision. It's one extremist judge.

~~~
luizlopes
I've heard of groups of people in the Southeast talk about how the mentality
of the people in the Northeast is different, and that is how you get the
extremist judge.

~~~
outworlder
> I've heard of groups of people in the Southeast talk about how the mentality
> of the people in the Northeast is different

Being born in the capital and lived in the Northeast for 3 decades, I can
attest that the mentality is indeed different.

For instance: the biggest A-holes usually come from the Southeast. See what I
did there? I have many examples to back this up, but they prove nothing.
Generalizations are harmful.

This is just a stupid judge overstepping his authority. If anything, that's
judge mentality for you.

Instead of "hearing from groups of people", catch a plane and see for
yourself. I bet some of your beliefs are going to change.

Caption for non Brazilians: there's this prejudice from people from the
Southeast against people from the Northeast. Some of it is historical, as the
Northeast suffered for centuries with severe drought (California's current
situation is better than their best case, no mountains storing ice). So,
people would migrate to the Southeast, in search of jobs. Usually poor,
uneducated people.

Since then, the Northeast has developed and, while the drought is still a
problem, most people are in cities now. Still, the stereotype persists,
specially among the elitist in the South/Southeast.

~~~
Dylan16807
>Being born in the capital and lived in the Northeast for 3 decades, I can
attest that the mentality is indeed different.

>For instance: the biggest A-holes usually come from the Southeast. See what I
did there? I have many examples to back this up, but they prove nothing.
Generalizations are harmful.

The person you're replying to didn't say that either mentality was better or
worse, just that they were different enough to lead to 'extremes'. Don't mock
that as an us-vs-them slapfight.

