> The company told the police that the groups had been deleted and that it could not recover the data.
The judge's order to suspend telegram is because they did not comply, which apparently saying "that data does not exist" is not complying.
If "No, we cannot give you that data" is grounds for this sort of action, that sounds an awful lot like "companies cannot delete or end-to-end encrypt user's data", since those operations would similarly result in a "no, it is not technically possible to give you user's data".
> "no, it is not technically possible to give you user's data".
That's essentially contempt of court here in Brazil. They've blocked WhatsApp nationwide here before multiple times for that. WhatsApp, a messaging service pretty much every person here depends on.
Judges are basically gods here by the way. It's a common saying. "Doctors think they're gods, judges know it". Lawyers tell me that there's no need to comply with court orders when it is literally impossible to comply. The judges order your imprisonment anyway.
I remember watching this shit in the news. They interviewed a judge, she was basically foaming at the mouth with rage. "Who do they think they are? Refusing to give us the data? Answering to us in english?" I loved it, I thought things were on the right track. I was wrong.
Telegram has a long history of obfuscation when it comes to court orders. In Brazil, they simply ignored previous court orders until they were banned. They played a similar trick in Germany too, and backed down after heavy fines: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-takes-on-telegram-to-fight-ext...
So, I wouldn't take anything they say at face value. It's not only about giving out the information they have on these individuals, it's also about shutting down other similar groups according to the court order. I'm not a free speech absolutist, I think that no platform should harbor Nazism and death threats, particularly after they have already resulted in murder. If they fundamentally cannot comply with this, then they should be banned indeed.
They did not "simply ignore" the court order. They did give the data they had, thats being all info about the groups owner. Furthermore, the court asked for info such as CPF number, home address and Bank account information. How the hell is this reasonable?
Furthermore, if you just blocked every platform just because it "had nazis on it", or even better, any kind of criminal group, hell, you should just block the whole damn internet already.
For non-Brazilians, that is a document in Brazil that almost everyone has, and is the most commonly used to identify you. But Telegram never asks you for it.
You should read the court order you posted here. Specifically these parts:
"Sucedeu-se que, nos termos do que demonstrou suficientemente a autoridade policial, essa
empresa cumpriu apenas parcialmente a ordem judicial que lhe foi dirigida, uma vez que se limitou a fornecer
as informações concernentes ao administrador (e não a todos os usuários) do canal “Movimento Anti-Semita
Brasileiro”, deixando, ademais, de fornecer os dados dos usuários do grupo “卐 Frente Anti-Semita 卐”. (...) não se sustenta a argumentação, desenvolvida pelo Telegram, de impossibilidade
de apresentar os dados relativos à "卐 Frente Anti-Semita 卐", à míngua da demonstração cabal de que esse grupo (chat) foi excluído há mais de seis meses, contados da data em que recebido o ofício judicial do evento 16 (do contrário, incide sobre o provedor o dever previsto no art. 15 da Lei n. 12.965/2014)."
In other words, the judge ordered all information they had (including CPF) about all users of the groups. They gave only what they had on the admin of one of the groups, and then said they couldn't give any info about the other group because it had been closed. But not storing info for at least 6 months is against the law.
To me it's clear Telegram is in contempt of court and should be severely punished.
> The company told the police that the groups had been deleted and that it could not recover the data.
The judge's order to suspend telegram is because they did not comply, which apparently saying "that data does not exist" is not complying.
If "No, we cannot give you that data" is grounds for this sort of action, that sounds an awful lot like "companies cannot delete or end-to-end encrypt user's data", since those operations would similarly result in a "no, it is not technically possible to give you user's data".