No need to presume: you can read the article. "dissemination of defamatory fake news and another probe over possible obstruction, incitement and criminal organization."
Anyone who accuses X of hosting disinformation and fake news will 100% win in court. It’s at least 75%of the content I see when I dare to go to the “for you” algo feed.
Obviously there's a lot more detail in all the prosecutions and investigations. Most, or all of it, should be publicly available if you really care to understand the problem.
Laws have been broken, and this is the justice system's reaction to that. This is not censorship. Brazil (and most of the world) don't subscribe to the idea that freedom of expression and freedom of press are unbound.
This is censorship. Just because it's being done within a legal framework doesn't mean it's not censorship. The Brazilian people will have to decide whether they want their judiciary to have such excessive control over freedom of expression.
The rest of the world should subscribe to the idea that freedom of expression and freedom of expression are (nearly) unbound. The USA is the only major country which gets this right.
> The Brazilian people will have to decide whether they want their judiciary to have such excessive control over freedom of expression.
This is a very loaded comment, full of personal opinions. Which is fine, but let's not pretend it's factual truth.
In any case, we have. At least within the limits of our USA-inspired representative democracy. Federal law goes through 3 houses of elected representatives: the National Congress, the Senate and the Union Executive.
The Constitution goes through even more scrutiny.
> The rest of the world should
More personal opinions. Which, again, is fine. But it's not factual truth.
> The USA is the only major country which gets this right
I think this says it all. We have very little common basis for discussion. I would say the USA is the main major country that gets the _most_ things wrong.
When any party, either government or private, blocks free expression then that is literally censorship. It might be legally or morally justified in some circumstances, but it is still censorship.
Words mean things. You don't get to redefine words to support your argument.
Sure but you'd also have to define free expression.
Article 10 of the Human Rights Act [0] says:
> 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
I will charitably assume that you aren't a native English speaker and are honestly confused about the nuances of the language rather than trying to derail the discussion with incorrect and irrelevant semantic arguments. Just because a particular act of censorship might be legal within a certain framework doesn't mean it isn't censorship.
Although I can't imagine why you would cite a UK law in a discussion about censorship in Brazil. It's sad how the UK has been growing ever more authoritarian and totalitarian, but that's an entirely separate discussion.
> Just because a particular act of censorship might be legal within a certain framework doesn't mean it isn't censorship.
For the record, I would like to note that this sort of censorship is utterly unconstitutional here in Brazil too.
Every single time this gets discussed, I cite the literal words from the constitution:
> Any and all censorship of political, ideological and artistic nature is prohibited
These are very simple words that any citizen can understand. There is no room for misinterpretation here. Yet every single time people respond with impressive mental gynmnastics to justify the judge-king's actions. I've had people argue with me by citing laws lower than the constitution, by getting into asinine arguments over the definition of free speech and censorship, by arguing about "isonomy" as if it somehow invalidated the very simple words written above, and also by calling me a moron for presuming to do the judge-king's job as if the contradictions weren't there in plain sight for all to see. The guy you're replying to once called me a sterotypical reactionary WhatsApp uncle right here on HN.
In the eve of the 2022 elections I witnessed this judge censor a documentary a priori. Without even watching it, before it was even released, he judged it was "fake news" and ordered its censorship. This is the sort of thing that used to happen in last century's military dictatorship. There is no justification for this whatsoever.
If a brazilian is harmed by someone's speech, they get to answer. They get to be made whole by legal means. They don't get to straight up censor the other guy or in any way prevent them from speaking. I see this all the time, even in politics. Some guy insults another, gets sued and is made to pay damages or whatever. That's all there is to it. The original insult is not censored. This is fine.
With these judges it's different. Some magazine ran some damning article on them back in 2019 and they granted themselves virtually limitless power to investigate, prosecute, judge and punish "fake news" of all kinds, with themselves as the victims. They determine what's fake of course. Their powers just kept expanding until they essentially usurped all power in this country. It got to the point the judge started proposing changes to laws directly to our representatives. The changes were rejected but he just rammed the "fake news" nonsense down our throats anyway via his "resolutions".
This is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship of the judiciary. Unelected judge-kings with lifetime mandates whose pens directly make the people with guns do their bidding. It's kind of ridiculous to even discuss "laws" at this point. These guys could write whatever they want on a piece of paper and it becomes law.
Which is fair enough, I think.