
Brazilian judge orders arrest of Google Brazil president  - robk
http://m.sfgate.com/sfchron/db_41697/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=RhbxpzZd
======
robomartin
I lived in Argentina on and off for about ten years. Similar bullshit there.
Government is a joke. Whoever is in power pulls the strings and makes shit up
to favor, well, whoever is in power.

US citizens ought to study the political history of these countries to really
understand why it is very, very important to keep your government as honest as
possible (honest government == oxymoron) and working for you and your
interests rather than their own.

It doesn't happen in the US?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09cEwnivdr0>

Virtually nothing in a democratic system is as sacred as a vote. Observing a
politician flat-out ignore voters and make-up his own result is down-right
disgusting. It is beyond me why this did not generate a revolt at all levels.
What was being voted on is of no consequence here. What is important is that
you are seeing the true nature of some politicians: You, the people, don't
really matter. It's about politicians for politicians. Sad.

BTW, It happens at all levels and ALL parties. We just don't get to see it.
This just happens to be one example that is very public.

~~~
ender7
That video is from the DNC, not from the US government. The Democratic Party
is free to structure itself however it chooses, especially with regards to
agreeing (or, in this case, failing to agree) on party policy. The days of
convention delegates actually voting on anything of substance are behind us --
conventions are just infomercials now.

~~~
robomartin
It's an example of the mindset more than anything else. The fact that they
(politicians --not being partisan here) are willing to do stuff like this.

We do have a perfect example of this at the congressional level: The
healthcare law. Most senators did not read it. And it was rammed through by
using parliamentary tricks (legal, of course) rather than votes. What's worst,
nobody actually read the law ("We have to pass the bill so that you can find
out what's in it"). And, of course, it was piled high with all sorts of pork.

The general idea is that politicians (all parties, all levels), as a class,
will work hard to optimize their own benefits --be it political or financial.
They seldom act with a sincere aim of benefiting the people or the country,
and certainly not with any real long term thinking (despite statements to the
contrary). The problem is that nobody has come up with a viable alternative
that could fix some of these issues. We humans are a sorry-ass species.

------
rbanffy
Well... It's embarrassing.

Unfortunately, Brazilian law attributes a higher value on someone's public
image than it does on free speech. Hate speech is similarly suppressed and
slander lawsuits are routinely used to silence criticism. If you blog about
the bad service you got at some restaurant, you risk being sued. Not that long
ago offenses against someone's honor have been used as mitigating factors in
murders.

The bright side is that, if the lawsuit is considered without merit, the other
part will have to cover at least part of your legal bills.

~~~
personlurking
On the flip side (or rather, other side of the pond), in Portugal, they have
the "livro de reclamações" (book of complaints) which a customer can request
at any moment. One copy of the complaint stays with the establishment, another
with the customer and the third, with the gov't agency that can hand out fines
to the restaurant or what-have-you.

[http://pigletinportugal.com/2010/10/28/how-to-make-a-
complai...](http://pigletinportugal.com/2010/10/28/how-to-make-a-complaint-
livro-de-reclamacoes/)

~~~
rbanffy
That's simply brilliant.

------
forinti
The candidate who asked for the video to be removed belongs to a party that
supported the military regime.

But, if the judge had ordered it deleted, shouldn't Google have taken it down
and then argued its case? I mean, would Google simply ignore a judge's order
in the US?

~~~
dudus
Brazil is one of the top countries when it comes to takedowns. This one might
have slipped I guess.

[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/government...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/government/BR/?p=2011-12)

~~~
nacker
Yes, on the page you linked, it states:

"Government requests for content removal are high in Brazil relative to other
countries partly because of the popularity of our social networking website,
orkut."

In other words, the high number of takedown requests from Brazil is to a
significant extent, an ARTIFACT of the predominance of Orkut in Brazil.

~~~
dudus
Yes but at the same time in terms of court orders you can see that they had
more on youtube than they had on orkut.

------
veidr
_> Google said in a Tuesday statement that it rejected the decision by Judge
Flavio Peren..._

That is an interesting response. What other judicial decisions has Google
issued statements rejecting?

------
bernardom
This is ironic. It's completely alien to me that there have been massive,
widespread attacks on American embassies due to a youtube video. I keep
wondering why they don't understand something that we learn as children: when
you argue with an idiot, you become an idiot. When you engage the bully in the
playground, you're giving them power.

So it's kind of funny that my home country is also censoring an independent
video on youtube. Another example of the web causing a problem for current
law.

The idea behind the law isn't bad: no personal attacks, equal airtime for
every party. Unfortunately, it breaks down when faced with the reality of
youtube.

~~~
tokenizer
>Another example of the web causing a problem for current law.

More like law causing problems for the web.

------
witek
Wow, Brazil still has some way to go, eh? Saying that, I'm writing from the
UK, a developed country that has attempted to raid another country's embassy
to extract a political asylum seeker, most likely with the thought of
eventually having him deported to the US, where he'd be murdered or held
indefinitely.

On the other hand, it shows the precarious nature of YouTube as a medium.
They're not responsible for the content because... What? Google says so? Up
until the recent times, we were used to channels taking at least some
responsibility for the content they're carrying. Do the TV channels and
newspapers not have to worry about privacy issues or about being libellous or
slandering? Are the bookshops not prevented from stocking illegal, potentially
harmful books? It's very convenient and cost-saving for Google to say: "sorry
guys, we know we earn $billions but it's all on user-generated content, so we
have no control over it." Perhaps that situation will change in the future and
Google will have to comply with local regulations, although that'd bring a
host of other issues with it.

I largely see Google as a force for good. However, there's a thin line that
could be crossed and could lead to the company imposing its own, sometimes US-
centred views, on the local nations. "Do no evil" to America is not
necessarily the same as do no evil as a human being.

------
denzil_correa
Something similar happened with the Ebay India CEO (then Baazee.com) in 2004
because the site hosted a sex video [0].

[0] <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/technology/21ebay.html>

------
robk
Really feel sorry for the guy if he goes to jail even for a few hours. Google
had this problem before in Italy and Turkey too IIRC. It ducks that a sales
manager goes to jail for something entirely out of their control.

~~~
fdrs
He will not even get near the jail. Google has money. Here, in Brazil, thats
enough for solving any problem with the justice. Justice system here is a joke
that just punishes poor people. There are _several_ cases of celebrities
killing people while driving drunk at high speed, and _NONE_ of them ever got
to prision. Everything is just a veeeery sad joke....

~~~
mylittlepony
_"There are _several_ cases of celebrities killing people while driving drunk
at high speed, and _NONE_ of them ever got to prision."_

I don't know about Brazil, but in Argentina that would be the correct ruling
according to the law. They probably didn't think they could actually kill
someone. In the worst case, they thought it was possible, but too improvable.
Plus they were drunk. So you may not like they laws, but these rulings alone
do not necessarily imply corruption.

~~~
ttt_
> _They probably didn't think they could actually kill someone._

In Brazil that would be true in the case of a regular car accident, it would
be regarded as having no intent to kill.

If you are drunk however, brazilian law understands that you had intention to
kill, because you know well enough that drinking will impair your driving and
most likely kill someone.

However, an officer's statement is not enough to prove that you are drunk, you
have to agree to take the test, and if you don't, than you can just throw
money at the case up to the point where the final ruling is so late to the
fact that the penalty has expired.

------
discountgenius
non-mobile link

[http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Brazil-judge-orders-
arres...](http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Brazil-judge-orders-arrest-of-
Google-president-3892759.php)

------
DigitalSea
Another day, another corrupt decision from the Brazilian Government. I don't
know why people accept the rules imposed on them in the country. You can't say
anything about anyone without potentially getting into legal trouble. Saying,
"McDonald's Sucks" is cause enough in Brazil to get yourself in trouble.

A truly messed up country. So next time someone complains about the way their
country is being run, tell them to read up on freedom in Brazil and they might
appreciate their own countries a little more.

~~~
pitiburi
Please beware that is good practice to actually read an article before
commenting. "A judge has ordered the arrest of the president of Google's
operating...". In just the second word, the article lets you know that it was
someone in the judicial power making the decision and giving the order. Not
the executive. And it is also very clear that the reason for the arrest was
not the videos, but the decision from Google to commit a crime by not obeying
a very specific order form a week before: hardly a base to conclude that it
was a "corrupt decision". So, not a corrupt decision, and not from the
Brazilian Government. The rest of your post is only a diatribe against Brazil,
where you show your feelings but not a single fact, idea or reasoning. Come on
man, this is not what HN should be for, and you are a valuable member of it;
we both know you are way better than this comment. I guess passions sometimes
are stronger than ourselves.

~~~
DigitalSea
I did read the article before commenting. A judge is employed by the
Government, it's his or her job to uphold the law, making decisions that
aren't in the bests interests of an entity or themselves. The judge in this
case is obviously upholding Brazils backwards law when it comes to censorship
and free speech. Quite to the contrary, Brazil and the US have far from
identical judicial systems.

If you have the money in Brazil you can get anyone into trouble who has
offended you where-as in the US and other places it's not as easy because the
US judicial system fortunately for you and others is not nearly as corrupt.

~~~
hazov
Yes, the Brazilian legal system is based on civil law and the US one is based
on common law, they work differently for example.

This is not the first decision against Google in this election and will
probably result in nothing for Google and their president and workers, I have
a couple of friends working in Google Brazil and life is the same as before,
there's no police in the door of their building harassing them, if everything
else fails he could appeal to the Supreme Federal Court who judges matters of
constitutional issues, including free speech and complication involving this
basic right.

Brazil does not have free speech as in the US, the legislation is almost the
same that exist in France and a couple of other European countries for
example, you cannot open a website containing hate speech, hosting neo-nazi
websites is illegal in Brazil, hosting terrorism related websites is illegal
in Brazil, the list follows, I prefer this way although I see value in the
American system.

Following HN for such a long time I saw a couple of comments about how the
legal system in the US also sucks and how the legal system there is a mess,
nothing different from, people here in São Paulo generally idolizes the
American criminal law and how it's easy to put people in jail for long times
or even applying capital punishment, which does not exist in Brazil, with a
exception in military justice in times of war, and yet I saw more than one
discussion of how this same system in the US sucks right here on HN some
months ago.

There's a point in the last paragraph, why are you generalizing? Are you a
expert in comparative international law? If not I do not see how your opinion
matters or how your last paragraph is valid, I used to be a grad student in
the US I got the impression that Americans are over litigious and that the
justice system generally benefits the rich who can pay better lawyers, not
much different from here in Brazil, but that is just pure personal experience,
I'm not a lawyer, I am a statistician. Must I say then that the US judicial
system is corrupt? I don't think so, personally I would love to live in a
world where judges are not necessary but we know that this won't happen.

And by the way in Brazil a judge is employed by the state not by a government.

~~~
hazov
Just to give a heads up, the guy was in fact detained. This is shit and I wish
this judge to go to hell.

------
zabraxias
Am I the only one surprised that Universal or Viacom haven't claimed ownership
rights of this video?

------
marizmelo
such a shame... politics in my country sucks :(

~~~
nightcoder
Read on Brazil's history and you will understand why Brazil is what it is
today. It's not for nothing and surely not news that Elite has always been in
charge there. This will not change easily when you have a constitution that
was written to benefit the elite in the first place.

------
BlackNapoleon
Should we be worried about the Olympics?

------
kakaroto_BR
Brazillian justice is a joke. Judges are at politicians' demand, bullshit like
this is common here.

------
kbradero
what the fack !!!? people of Brazil, you are very smart please do not permit
this to happen on your own country.

Internet gives you power, dont let these fu __*rs do whatever they want.

------
ck2
Aren't they getting the Olympics? Well that's not looking too safe after this.

Will the next world war start over a video on youtube? Starting to consider
that.

~~~
unreal37
Huh? You think Brazil is going to have their Olympics revoked over a YouTube
complaint by a Campo Grande politician? Campo Grande, by the way, is an
extremely tiny city. This isn't Sao Paulo we're talking about here.

------
capo
Insanity! not just the arrest order but the 24hr blackout, can someone living
there confirm if Google is blocked or was blocked recently?

This seems like an excessive amount of power wield by some random judge, not
to mention the non issue of it all.

~~~
felipe
I am Brazilian, and I can confirm everything is well with Google and YouTube
over here :) Brazil does not have the centralized capability to shutdown
sites.

Having said that, the decision might not seem that crazy once you know more
about the local electoral laws: Each party has a free quota of TV ad spots
(it's actually good because it gives a voice to smaller parties), and because
they are free they need to follow certain rules such as no personal attacks.

The electoral judge has the the power to arrest media bosses because
historically media has a huge influence in Brazilian elections (for example,
the owner of the major TV network actually elected a president several years
ago).

Google is being treated in this case as any other mainstream media, and its
president is being held accountable. Sounds a little crazy, but these were all
protections put in place as a result of decades of dictatorship and
disproportionate power enjoyed by the elites.

~~~
personlurking
Below is an excerpt of someone's personal account of how (local) politics are
down here. In the US, I'm pretty sure I could tune out politics come election
time, but here it's impossible. The cars playing the election jingles drive by
non-stop. I've seen traffic completely stop on main streets in various
neighborhoods because some idiot hired a bunch of people to basically block
traffic, wear shirts and carry signs supporting one politician or another.
Their names, faces and voting number are plastered _everywhere_. There are
places in the favelas where I hear the police only allow one kind of
politician's signs to be displayed (because the police are often as corrupt as
the politicians).

As for the equal amount of allotted airtime per politician, I know someone who
was running for city council and she told me the allotted time is not equal,
that it's dependent on several factors. In any event, politics here annoys me
all the same.

_____

"It's 3PM and a car drives by the apartment complex. This isn’t an odd
occurrence since I live near a main street. This particular car happens to
have large speakers set up on its roof and it’s playing the kind of song that
is attractive to young people. Without considering it, I start bobbing my head
to the beat while at my desk...then comes the chorus. Strangely, it’s a five
digit number that is on a loop.

What I’m experiencing, in actuality, is a local politician’s campaign
strategy. Politicians in Brazil each get a number which they need to use to
the best of their ability in order to get their constituents to vote for them.
These numbers are repeated ad-infinitum as if the only purpose were to implant
that number in people’s heads.

A few other strategies are also employed during election time, with only one
of them allowing the politician ‘air-time’ to say what they stand for. Another
phase of the “remember my name and number” plan of attack, is to hire anyone
looking for some extra cash to stand in high traffic areas and hand out glossy
leaflets with the politician’s face, name, number and political party on them.
The idea, I suppose, is to hammer the message home. Whatever that message
might be, I can’t quite tell."

~~~
joneil
In Australia our politicians seem no more sophisticated. While the leaders of
the political parties dominate the media, come election time you only vote for
a member in your local area, not the leader you've seen on TV. And at the
Ballot Box, the only thing you see is the candidates full name and political
party.

This has led to the same "get my name out there" campaign, where my entire
suburb will be covered in Billboards of various candidates, each Billboard
containing only their photo and their name. Half the time I can't even tell
which party they are with, let alone what their policies are or why they
deserve my vote. I can't imagine it's an effective use of the campaign budget.

The worst version of this is seeing a party which otherwise claims to be
thoughtful about the environment and global warming etc hiring drivers to
drive a convoy of cars with billboards on the trailers around the city -
again, with nothing but a photo and a name. I sometimes wonder if politicians
even consider what message their campaigns send the electorate...

~~~
personlurking
The other similarity is you are obliged to vote, just like Brazilians. I'm not
sure what the fine is there but here it's just R$3 (US$1.50).

More on Brazilian politics here.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/wljya/til_tha...](http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/wljya/til_that_an_illiterate_clown_was_elected_to/c5egpyy)

It's quite convoluted.

------
Buzaga
Brazil is a joke.

Neither Google or Youtube are down now here, probably won't be too, since it
would let it spill the amount of ridiculousness that happens around here in
every field outwards.

Not long ago, another judge tried to blackout Facebook for 24hrs too, don't
remember why...

~~~
vibrunazo
> Not long ago, another judge tried to blackout Facebook for 24hrs too, don't
> remember why...

It was for similar reasons. Someone trash talked a politician on Facebook, the
politician ordered it to be taken down, Facebook failed to comply and was
ordered to blackout for 24 hours.

It's worth noting that Brazil is the number 1 country in number of takedown
requests to Google. Almost all of them are because of politicians feeling
offended.

~~~
nacker
"Brazil is the number 1 country in number of takedown requests to Google"

I had heard that too. It's not true. Of course, it's the US. And the US is
ahead in the percent of requests complied with by Google (93%) which is the
important thing.

Three sources: [http://www.care2.com/causes/us-makes-most-takedown-
requests-...](http://www.care2.com/causes/us-makes-most-takedown-requests-
says-google.html) [http://searchengineland.com/most-censorship-and-content-
take...](http://searchengineland.com/most-censorship-and-content-takedown-
requests-come-from-us-says-google-125149) [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/king-
of-takedown-requests-goog...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/king-of-takedown-
requests-google-says-the-u-s-government/80102)

~~~
danielweber
"Percent of takedowns complied with" is probably useful, but in isolation is
useless. Takedowns can be legitimate or illegitimate.

~~~
nacker
Ah, but who is really to determine what is legitimate or illegitimate? My
country, your country? The Google shareholders? The RIAA?

The fact is that Google complies with US requests at a far higher rate than
any other country's. It's a US company, and users in Brasil or anywhere else
had better not forget that, just as they should not forget that Microsoft and
Apple are US companies.

As I never tire of saying, "there is no free lunch".

