I think I’m kind of on twitter’s side here — I’m pretty uncomfortable with a government demanding the deplatforming of political rivals, or with making it illegal to access any kind of content as...
I think I’m kind of on twitter’s side here — I’m pretty uncomfortable with a government demanding the deplatforming of political rivals, or with making it illegal to access any kind of content as they seem to be doing with the VPN circumvention laws.
Yeah. I can agree with them wanting a legal representative for Twitter. I can also understand wanting them to remove disinformation to a certain extent, because that is a major issue with it in...
Yeah. I can agree with them wanting a legal representative for Twitter. I can also understand wanting them to remove disinformation to a certain extent, because that is a major issue with it in its current state. At this point Musk talking about "free speech" feels pretty disingenuous since he's using Twitter as a political tool to try to push his own agendas and quiet down opposing views.
But the fact the judge is threatening to punish people for using VPNs to access it, and is also punishing Starlink since it's also owned by Musk... It's not painting a good picture of his and Brazil's intent. This comes across as more about control.
I raised this in yesterday's post about this topic If Brazil can so easily do this to him, what about China or Saudi Arabia? He has enormous financial interests associated with those authoritarian...
I raised this in yesterday's post about this topic
This is the exact kind of pressure people were worried about Elon becoming susceptible to with his acquisition of Twitter.
Do [x] or we'll ban Tesla/SpaceX/Starlink/Neuralink/etc
Whether [x] is "suppress this dissident" or "comply with this law" it puts him into a position where he has to choose between his self-professed "free speech maximalist" views and the success of his other business ventures.
If Brazil can so easily do this to him, what about China or Saudi Arabia? He has enormous financial interests associated with those authoritarian regimes.
Although, Musk is rather strange in that he seems pretty resistant to financial pressure? Every so often he loses billions on something he feels strongly about. The Twitter acquisition is itself...
Although, Musk is rather strange in that he seems pretty resistant to financial pressure? Every so often he loses billions on something he feels strongly about. The Twitter acquisition is itself an example of losing billions due to a miscalculation.
It's another example of how economic incentives are not destiny.
I don't think getting cut off from Twitter is all that big a deal. There are other social networks. But if this gets enforced, it will be ordinary Brazilians who suffer.
He's resistant to financial pressure because he's partially funded by Russia and dark money that finds twitter a very valuable space to sow disinformation.
He's resistant to financial pressure because he's partially funded by Russia and dark money that finds twitter a very valuable space to sow disinformation.
Haven't heard that one. What evidence is there of Russian funding? It seems rather unlikely that the richest man in the world would take the money, rather than doing whatever he likes.
Haven't heard that one. What evidence is there of Russian funding? It seems rather unlikely that the richest man in the world would take the money, rather than doing whatever he likes.
Recently the list of funders (pdf warning) for his acquisition of Twitter came to light. 8VC, one of the venture capital firms includes among its membership the children of Russian oligarchs. The...
Recently the list of funders (pdf warning) for his acquisition of Twitter came to light. 8VC, one of the venture capital firms includes among its membership the children of Russian oligarchs. The degree to which this means Musk is in Russia's pocket is unclear.
Hmm.. these are what I can find about 8VC Opportunities Fund II L.P. which the Yahoo News article alleges are linked to Russian oligarchs: They are registered in Texas and is where Musk is...
Hmm.. these are what I can find about 8VC Opportunities Fund II L.P. which the Yahoo News article alleges are linked to Russian oligarchs:
From my own digging, this seems less Russian control or influence, than it is some Russian rich kids just wanted a piece of an already-huge pie that they won't even be capable of moving a scintilla of. Note that 8VC itself is not founded or started by Russian oligarchs contrary to what others might imply.
I have to agree. As much as I dislike Twitter, and loathe Musk, I can't understand the motivations of Brazil here. It's easy enough to argue that the state has a duty of care to protect it's...
I have to agree. As much as I dislike Twitter, and loathe Musk, I can't understand the motivations of Brazil here. It's easy enough to argue that the state has a duty of care to protect it's citzens from misinformation.
What's really quite difficult to argue is that that duty of care extends as far as people who don't want that care , ex: VPN users. I have to assume that anyone who has enough digital literacy to install a VPN also has the knowhow (even if they don't utilise that) to assess the legitimacy of the media they consume.
The fine is also totally disproportionate for a 'crime' that solely effects yourself. A quick Google search (could be wrong, I didn't do that much research) suggests that R$50,000 is around half the average annual salary. It's a life-changing amount of money considering it was totally legal 24 hours ago.
Until recently I would have agreed with this but I have a family member who somehow installed one of those VPNs that gets advertised a lot. I then had to "fix"their internet because the VPN had...
. I have to assume that anyone who has enough digital literacy to install a VPN also has the knowhow (even if they don't utilise that) to assess the legitimacy of the media they consume.
Until recently I would have agreed with this but I have a family member who somehow installed one of those VPNs that gets advertised a lot. I then had to "fix"their internet because the VPN had done the thing where it shuts down the internet connection if it gets interrupted. When I asked the family member why they had installed the VPN they couldn't explain other than saying they had heard it makes browsing the internet better.
I'm not sure, but the starlink part might be because they won't comply with the order to block twitter. They have to send the order to twenty thousand providers. Mine is a small one that covers...
I'm not sure, but the starlink part might be because they won't comply with the order to block twitter. They have to send the order to twenty thousand providers. Mine is a small one that covers only my small town and we have a few more of them. It usually takes a while to be blocked, which wouldn't matter anyway.
From what I've gathered, those aren't just "political rivals", but mostly people who participated in the attempted coup of January 2023. Edit: and the more I think about it, the more I find it...
I’m pretty uncomfortable with a government demanding the deplatforming of political rivals
From what I've gathered, those aren't just "political rivals", but mostly people who participated in the attempted coup of January 2023.
Edit: and the more I think about it, the more I find it dishonest to reduce the issue to "government censors political rivals" and completely ignore the context. It bothers me this is the most voted comment.
I am a little flabbergasted with one post saying China and Saudhi Arabia are authoritarian. Not saying Saudhi Arabia is not, it clearly is, but putting China in the same sentence is absurd and...
I am a little flabbergasted with one post saying China and Saudhi Arabia are authoritarian. Not saying Saudhi Arabia is not, it clearly is, but putting China in the same sentence is absurd and shows where they get information about China. Certainly from the US.
What makes you say that China is not authoritarian compared to Saudi Arabia? I'm not aware of any discourse that calls into question China's authoritarian governance style, at least not academic...
Not saying Saudhi Arabia is not, it clearly is, but putting China in the same sentence is absurd and shows where they get information about China. Certainly from the US.
What makes you say that China is not authoritarian compared to Saudi Arabia? I'm not aware of any discourse that calls into question China's authoritarian governance style, at least not academic discourse
What makes China authoritarian? I have a couple of acquaintances living there. One goes to a christian church. They live fairly well and has access to everything. Extremely good and fast public...
What makes China authoritarian? I have a couple of acquaintances living there.
One goes to a christian church. They live fairly well and has access to everything. Extremely good and fast public transportation and there are no robberies there. Not kidding, they don't know what it means. You can leave your backpack in the streets and it stays there.
Are we calling it authoritarian because PCCh is in power? As a socialist, yes, it should be.
It's not like our elections here in Brazil and specially the two parties in USA makes much of a difference.
For any claim that China has an authoritarian attitude, I can point something similar in major "democratic" countries.
Now, I'm talking about current China. Not cultural revolution China, that shit was absurd and a mistake. If we trace the history of every country, well... We can still find slavery here in Brazil.
China literally has more active political parties and living ideological currents in government than in the US.
Xi is president, but he cannot dictate, his immediate council is the Politburo Standing Committee of 6 others, and is part of a larger body of 25 Politburo members.
The president still has to be elected by the 3000 National People's Congress. He could be voted out and would have to go.
His approval rating is twice that of the average American politician. The idea that he needs to use force but the USA don't is just nonsense.
If this is about the ban of Instagram, Facebook and whatever. They are absolutely correct in doing so. As we are with Twitter/X.
They are right in doing so giving the context and history of China. You can circumvent with VPN. Same thing with X here in Brazil. Going to need reliable non-US sources on that This was tested in...
the great firewall
They are right in doing so giving the context and history of China. You can circumvent with VPN. Same thing with X here in Brazil.
Uygurs
Going to need reliable non-US sources on that
social credit scores
This was tested in some cities and it did not stick. We already have this in Brazil for decades and it is called Serasa. Are we authoritarian? You need to really check our sources on these things and exactly what they accomplish. Non-US sources.
literally a one party system
There are more parties than the US. Which is one party with two names.
Tibet
This I cannot comment, but I can point to USA and talk about each country they invaded or supported a coup (Brazil included). It is imperialist and autorithative, just with other countries. We lived under a militar dictatorship with the help of USA.
Every country does and has shit going on. The fact that Americans put China, a socialist country, as autothoritarian, says more about the USA which is way worse at everything. They have an agenda.
Not saying everything is a lie, but I don't trust any source from a country that founded Radio Free Asia.
Pointing fingers at other without any context is just propaganda.
tiananmen square
This happened, but not the way we receive the news here in the western.
Here in Brazil recently we shut protesters with violence and one teacher lost an eye.
Write what I'm saying. You'll see this happening in more countries from now on. The X/Twitter thing here in Brazil is just one part of it. I think every country benefits from shutting up USA sources.
Write what I'm saying. You'll see this happening in more countries from now on.
The X/Twitter thing here in Brazil is just one part of it.
I think every country benefits from shutting up USA sources.
Not, but we have Indigenous people here in Brazil which are being decimated as we speak. USA certainly didn't kill any too and still kill people on other countries. Not authoritarian at all.
Not, but we have Indigenous people here in Brazil which are being decimated as we speak.
USA certainly didn't kill any too and still kill people on other countries. Not authoritarian at all.
A lot of your arguments here seem to be along the lines of “Brazil is doing the same thing so it’s ok when China does it”. That surely just speaks to Brazil being an authoritarian state rather...
A lot of your arguments here seem to be along the lines of “Brazil is doing the same thing so it’s ok when China does it”. That surely just speaks to Brazil being an authoritarian state rather than China not being one?
Isn’t this just “America is doing the same thing so it’s ok when China does it”? The USA does a lot of authoritarian things. The drug war certainly comes to mind. Every country falls somewhere in...
Isn’t this just “America is doing the same thing so it’s ok when China does it”?
The USA does a lot of authoritarian things. The drug war certainly comes to mind. Every country falls somewhere in the spectrum. However, I think it’s unarguable that Americans have much greater freedoms than people living under Chinese rule.
And again, comparisons to other countries aren’t really determinative when it comes to assessing China — China is objectively authoritarian based on their actions, not in relation to other countries.
Well, that's great for them - but anecdotal evidence says little. And statistics from China are quite dubious at times. Perhaps, but how many of them will govern at any point? I don't like the way...
One goes to a christian church. They live fairly well and has access to everything. Extremely good and fast public transportation and there are no robberies there. Not kidding, they don't know what it means. You can leave your backpack in the streets and it stays there.
Well, that's great for them - but anecdotal evidence says little. And statistics from China are quite dubious at times.
China literally has more active political parties and living ideological currents in government than in the US.
Perhaps, but how many of them will govern at any point? I don't like the way the US is run either, and I'd say it's closer to an oligarchy with democratic elements than a proper liberal democracy. But it's rather difficult for me to consider China as more democratic.
His approval rating is twice that of the average American politician. The idea that he needs to use force but the USA don't is just nonsense.
If anything this is an argument for calling China authoritarian given Bejings influence over the media. If your argument is that it's less authoritarian than say Saudi Arabia I could see it, but that's not particularly due to China. And there is more than enough to blame and criticise the west and other countries too.
With that said, let's take a step back and first ask, what is authoritarian? There are a couple of definitions, but they generally revolve around one key concept: Concentration of power and authority around either a person or an elite, that hold no real accountability.
Given it's one party system, strong media control, state ownership, and the lack of separation of powers, I'd say it very much fits most of the definitions provided for authoritarian. The way politics within the CCP works is definitely different from how it works in many other authoritarian regimes, but personally I don't see how that changes much.
I would be just as concerned if the Biden administration were forcing Twitter to shut off Trump or other Jan 6 participants. Government censorship is not a good thing.
I would be just as concerned if the Biden administration were forcing Twitter to shut off Trump or other Jan 6 participants. Government censorship is not a good thing.
Except when the right-wing Indian government demanded he take down (left-leaning) political rivals, he did. So no. He isn’t doing what he’s saying he’s doing by “standing up to censorship.”
Musk "standing up to censorship" or "being a free-speech absolutionist" only works when the censorship comes from the left and the free-speech from the right.
Musk "standing up to censorship" or "being a free-speech absolutionist" only works when the censorship comes from the left and the free-speech from the right.
Do note the following: In its clarification, X said the accounts and posts were being withheld in India alone "in compliance with the orders". It, however, added that the platform did not agree...
YouTube also censors heavily, as evidenced by the recent Kolkata doctor SA case. Multiple YouTubers who have talked about the topic have had their videos taken down by the Indian government and had to upload to censor out certain information. See Dark Asia with Meghan and Rotten Mangos.
Also do note that Musk also had to censor in the UK, France, Germany, Brazil, and so on. Musk has repeatedly said this is so that X employees do not get charged and jailed. This is the same reasoning that Google, Microsoft, and other companies use.
Not saying Musk is great and all, but certainly not that shady as compared to the rest, and for sure he makes a heck lot more noise for freedom of speech than Google or Microsoft.
As a non-Bralizian - I second this! Also, Brazilians, you can use libre project like Fediverse as an alternative, such projects as Akkoma, Mastodon, Hubzilla, etc. that are connected together...
As a non-Bralizian - I second this! Also, Brazilians, you can use libre project like Fediverse as an alternative, such projects as Akkoma, Mastodon, Hubzilla, etc. that are connected together (imagine Facebook and Twitter users interacting with each other, but in a non-greedycorporate environment). Check it out, e.g. kolektiva.social or blanketfort.blog or many others.
[edit]
or Brazilian diasporabr.com.br/
You can look up available instances here: fediverse.observer/list
Almost all of them interoprate with each other, doesn't matter which one you choose, you will see content from all Fediverse, unless some instances aren't blocked by admins of yours.
Never used twitter. Didn't care for the content/style. I have a mastodon account, but use sparingly. I'm not much of a social network person. Also I don't think mastodon will become a substitute....
Never used twitter. Didn't care for the content/style.
I have a mastodon account, but use sparingly. I'm not much of a social network person.
Also I don't think mastodon will become a substitute. It will remain a niche social network.
Probably people will migrate to threads or bluesky.
Never tried. I try to stay away from this type of place. I only have instagram and recently mastodon, but don't use much. Instagram is mainly to share funny videos with my SO.
Never tried. I try to stay away from this type of place.
I only have instagram and recently mastodon, but don't use much.
Instagram is mainly to share funny videos with my SO.
This isn’t even about the accounts Musk won’t take down anymore. To operate a foreign business inside of Brazil, you must have a person in Brazil acting as representative. Musk recalled all his...
This isn’t even about the accounts Musk won’t take down anymore. To operate a foreign business inside of Brazil, you must have a person in Brazil acting as representative. Musk recalled all his employees, fired the local ones, and shut down the physical location that had been Twitter’s legally required presence in Brazil. The STF told him he needed to have a representative in Brazil to operate in Brazil. He refused. So the business is not legally allowed to operate in Brazil.
The best part of this whole thing was the STF issuing a summons to appear to Musk on twitter. (No link bc 🇧🇷, so source: trust me, bro.) EDIT: this thread on Bluesky has translated copies of all documents.
The mood on twitter last night was jubilant. The memes were perfect, the attitude was amused, so many people were saying they’d finally be free, so many brazilians in fandom circles coming out as brazilian to the shock of their mutuals ahahah It was a beautiful final night. 💙
Bluesky's "Catch Up" page (all content on the site, sorted by likes) is nothing but Portuguese now. The amount of new Brazilian users must be astronomical relative to the user base we had...
Bluesky's "Catch Up" page (all content on the site, sorted by likes) is nothing but Portuguese now. The amount of new Brazilian users must be astronomical relative to the user base we had yesterday.
Edit: They must have enabled some regional filtering for "Catch Up" since I checked it an hour ago. Looks more comparable to yesterday for me now.
"over 500k new users in the last two days 🤯" per Bluesky official account (posted after your comment). Compared with 800k new users in February on the first day it had open signups. 6 million...
"over 500k new users in the last two days 🤯" per Bluesky official account (posted after your comment).
It will be interesting to see how this will potentially indirectly affect Portuguese people using the platform more. Second order effects in our intertwined world are pretty new and relatively...
It will be interesting to see how this will potentially indirectly affect Portuguese people using the platform more. Second order effects in our intertwined world are pretty new and relatively interesting.
Even funnier would be an usage increase in Luxembourg, given how many Portuguese citizens live there nowadays.
Crazy how popular government censorship of the Internet is these days. Used to be that everyone^* was critical of China's great firewall, now it seems inevitable that every country will have it's...
Crazy how popular government censorship of the Internet is these days. Used to be that everyone^* was critical of China's great firewall, now it seems inevitable that every country will have it's own silo of internet
While I don't think we'll end up with Internet Silo's so to speak, its certainly a huge shift. With how fast it's been going on it almost feels like the prohibition era in the US. Continuous...
While I don't think we'll end up with Internet Silo's so to speak, its certainly a huge shift. With how fast it's been going on it almost feels like the prohibition era in the US. Continuous buildup to having major, open platform - only for all that buildup to come crashing down as people don't like it in practice.
Of course, social media is very different from alcohol. And I don't think it will end in the same way for obvious reasons.
I'm curious to see how this will affect Brazilian society. If it ends up being positive, we may see an unusual domino effect.
I think I’m kind of on twitter’s side here — I’m pretty uncomfortable with a government demanding the deplatforming of political rivals, or with making it illegal to access any kind of content as they seem to be doing with the VPN circumvention laws.
Yeah. I can agree with them wanting a legal representative for Twitter. I can also understand wanting them to remove disinformation to a certain extent, because that is a major issue with it in its current state. At this point Musk talking about "free speech" feels pretty disingenuous since he's using Twitter as a political tool to try to push his own agendas and quiet down opposing views.
But the fact the judge is threatening to punish people for using VPNs to access it, and is also punishing Starlink since it's also owned by Musk... It's not painting a good picture of his and Brazil's intent. This comes across as more about control.
I raised this in yesterday's post about this topic
If Brazil can so easily do this to him, what about China or Saudi Arabia? He has enormous financial interests associated with those authoritarian regimes.
Although, Musk is rather strange in that he seems pretty resistant to financial pressure? Every so often he loses billions on something he feels strongly about. The Twitter acquisition is itself an example of losing billions due to a miscalculation.
It's another example of how economic incentives are not destiny.
I don't think getting cut off from Twitter is all that big a deal. There are other social networks. But if this gets enforced, it will be ordinary Brazilians who suffer.
He's resistant to financial pressure because he's partially funded by Russia and dark money that finds twitter a very valuable space to sow disinformation.
Haven't heard that one. What evidence is there of Russian funding? It seems rather unlikely that the richest man in the world would take the money, rather than doing whatever he likes.
Recently the list of funders (pdf warning) for his acquisition of Twitter came to light. 8VC, one of the venture capital firms includes among its membership the children of Russian oligarchs. The degree to which this means Musk is in Russia's pocket is unclear.
Hmm.. these are what I can find about 8VC Opportunities Fund II L.P. which the Yahoo News article alleges are linked to Russian oligarchs:
They are registered in Texas and is where Musk is considering moving to.
They back plenty of US-Israel-heavy companies like Palantir, and also Meta-backed companies like Oculus.
They are not founded or heavily influenced by Russia. Note the article says: But 8VC founder Lonsdale said that these family ties do not prevent them from participating in Western business ventures. He noted that neither Jack nor Denis were involved in their fathers’ businesses or political dealings in Russia.
From my own digging, this seems less Russian control or influence, than it is some Russian rich kids just wanted a piece of an already-huge pie that they won't even be capable of moving a scintilla of. Note that 8VC itself is not founded or started by Russian oligarchs contrary to what others might imply.
https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-censorship-elon-musk-throttled-tweets-turkey-presidential-election-2023-5
I have to agree. As much as I dislike Twitter, and loathe Musk, I can't understand the motivations of Brazil here. It's easy enough to argue that the state has a duty of care to protect it's citzens from misinformation.
What's really quite difficult to argue is that that duty of care extends as far as people who don't want that care , ex: VPN users. I have to assume that anyone who has enough digital literacy to install a VPN also has the knowhow (even if they don't utilise that) to assess the legitimacy of the media they consume.
The fine is also totally disproportionate for a 'crime' that solely effects yourself. A quick Google search (could be wrong, I didn't do that much research) suggests that R$50,000 is around half the average annual salary. It's a life-changing amount of money considering it was totally legal 24 hours ago.
Until recently I would have agreed with this but I have a family member who somehow installed one of those VPNs that gets advertised a lot. I then had to "fix"their internet because the VPN had done the thing where it shuts down the internet connection if it gets interrupted. When I asked the family member why they had installed the VPN they couldn't explain other than saying they had heard it makes browsing the internet better.
They have walked back the VPN punishment.
I'm not sure, but the starlink part might be because they won't comply with the order to block twitter. They have to send the order to twenty thousand providers. Mine is a small one that covers only my small town and we have a few more of them. It usually takes a while to be blocked, which wouldn't matter anyway.
From what I've gathered, those aren't just "political rivals", but mostly people who participated in the attempted coup of January 2023.
Edit: and the more I think about it, the more I find it dishonest to reduce the issue to "government censors political rivals" and completely ignore the context. It bothers me this is the most voted comment.
I am a little flabbergasted with one post saying China and Saudhi Arabia are authoritarian. Not saying Saudhi Arabia is not, it clearly is, but putting China in the same sentence is absurd and shows where they get information about China. Certainly from the US.
What makes you say that China is not authoritarian compared to Saudi Arabia? I'm not aware of any discourse that calls into question China's authoritarian governance style, at least not academic discourse
What makes China authoritarian? I have a couple of acquaintances living there.
One goes to a christian church. They live fairly well and has access to everything. Extremely good and fast public transportation and there are no robberies there. Not kidding, they don't know what it means. You can leave your backpack in the streets and it stays there.
Are we calling it authoritarian because PCCh is in power? As a socialist, yes, it should be.
It's not like our elections here in Brazil and specially the two parties in USA makes much of a difference.
For any claim that China has an authoritarian attitude, I can point something similar in major "democratic" countries.
Now, I'm talking about current China. Not cultural revolution China, that shit was absurd and a mistake. If we trace the history of every country, well... We can still find slavery here in Brazil.
China literally has more active political parties and living ideological currents in government than in the US.
Xi is president, but he cannot dictate, his immediate council is the Politburo Standing Committee of 6 others, and is part of a larger body of 25 Politburo members.
The president still has to be elected by the 3000 National People's Congress. He could be voted out and would have to go.
His approval rating is twice that of the average American politician. The idea that he needs to use force but the USA don't is just nonsense.
If this is about the ban of Instagram, Facebook and whatever. They are absolutely correct in doing so. As we are with Twitter/X.
They are right in doing so giving the context and history of China. You can circumvent with VPN. Same thing with X here in Brazil.
Going to need reliable non-US sources on that
This was tested in some cities and it did not stick. We already have this in Brazil for decades and it is called Serasa. Are we authoritarian? You need to really check our sources on these things and exactly what they accomplish. Non-US sources.
There are more parties than the US. Which is one party with two names.
This I cannot comment, but I can point to USA and talk about each country they invaded or supported a coup (Brazil included). It is imperialist and autorithative, just with other countries. We lived under a militar dictatorship with the help of USA.
Every country does and has shit going on. The fact that Americans put China, a socialist country, as autothoritarian, says more about the USA which is way worse at everything. They have an agenda.
Not saying everything is a lie, but I don't trust any source from a country that founded Radio Free Asia.
Pointing fingers at other without any context is just propaganda.
This happened, but not the way we receive the news here in the western.
Here in Brazil recently we shut protesters with violence and one teacher lost an eye.
Brazil and U.S. being authoritarian does not prevent China from being authoritarian.
That's OK then. It's just that when I read that, people don't see their own country being authoritarian.
I don’t think I can get past this. What???
Write what I'm saying. You'll see this happening in more countries from now on.
The X/Twitter thing here in Brazil is just one part of it.
I think every country benefits from shutting up USA sources.
I guess your friends aren’t Uyghur.
Not, but we have Indigenous people here in Brazil which are being decimated as we speak.
USA certainly didn't kill any too and still kill people on other countries. Not authoritarian at all.
A lot of your arguments here seem to be along the lines of “Brazil is doing the same thing so it’s ok when China does it”. That surely just speaks to Brazil being an authoritarian state rather than China not being one?
But it's not authoritarian when USA does with another countries or with it's own native people?
Isn’t this just “America is doing the same thing so it’s ok when China does it”?
The USA does a lot of authoritarian things. The drug war certainly comes to mind. Every country falls somewhere in the spectrum. However, I think it’s unarguable that Americans have much greater freedoms than people living under Chinese rule.
And again, comparisons to other countries aren’t really determinative when it comes to assessing China — China is objectively authoritarian based on their actions, not in relation to other countries.
Where can we learn more about these other political parties?
Well, that's great for them - but anecdotal evidence says little. And statistics from China are quite dubious at times.
Perhaps, but how many of them will govern at any point? I don't like the way the US is run either, and I'd say it's closer to an oligarchy with democratic elements than a proper liberal democracy. But it's rather difficult for me to consider China as more democratic.
If anything this is an argument for calling China authoritarian given Bejings influence over the media. If your argument is that it's less authoritarian than say Saudi Arabia I could see it, but that's not particularly due to China. And there is more than enough to blame and criticise the west and other countries too.
With that said, let's take a step back and first ask, what is authoritarian? There are a couple of definitions, but they generally revolve around one key concept: Concentration of power and authority around either a person or an elite, that hold no real accountability.
Given it's one party system, strong media control, state ownership, and the lack of separation of powers, I'd say it very much fits most of the definitions provided for authoritarian. The way politics within the CCP works is definitely different from how it works in many other authoritarian regimes, but personally I don't see how that changes much.
I would be just as concerned if the Biden administration were forcing Twitter to shut off Trump or other Jan 6 participants. Government censorship is not a good thing.
We won't see eye to eye on things. I am all in favor of censoring the far right.
Except when the right-wing Indian government demanded he take down (left-leaning) political rivals, he did. So no. He isn’t doing what he’s saying he’s doing by “standing up to censorship.”
Musk "standing up to censorship" or "being a free-speech absolutionist" only works when the censorship comes from the left and the free-speech from the right.
Exactly. Exactly.
Do note the following: In its clarification, X said the accounts and posts were being withheld in India alone "in compliance with the orders". It, however, added that the platform did not agree with the government action and maintained that "freedom of expression should extend to these posts". The platform also said it had legally challenged the government's "blocking orders", without specifying which court they had petitioned.
YouTube also censors heavily, as evidenced by the recent Kolkata doctor SA case. Multiple YouTubers who have talked about the topic have had their videos taken down by the Indian government and had to upload to censor out certain information. See Dark Asia with Meghan and Rotten Mangos.
Also do note that Musk also had to censor in the UK, France, Germany, Brazil, and so on. Musk has repeatedly said this is so that X employees do not get charged and jailed. This is the same reasoning that Google, Microsoft, and other companies use.
Not saying Musk is great and all, but certainly not that shady as compared to the rest, and for sure he makes a heck lot more noise for freedom of speech than Google or Microsoft.
As a Brazilian, I hope twitter never comes back online here.
That said, the VPN thing is a little absurd.
As a non-Bralizian - I second this! Also, Brazilians, you can use libre project like Fediverse as an alternative, such projects as Akkoma, Mastodon, Hubzilla, etc. that are connected together (imagine Facebook and Twitter users interacting with each other, but in a non-
greedycorporate environment). Check it out, e.g. kolektiva.social or blanketfort.blog or many others.[edit]
or Brazilian diasporabr.com.br/
You can look up available instances here: fediverse.observer/list
Almost all of them interoprate with each other, doesn't matter which one you choose, you will see content from all Fediverse, unless some instances aren't blocked by admins of yours.
Never used twitter. Didn't care for the content/style.
I have a mastodon account, but use sparingly. I'm not much of a social network person.
Also I don't think mastodon will become a substitute. It will remain a niche social network.
Probably people will migrate to threads or bluesky.
What do you think of it compared to Twitter?
Never tried. I try to stay away from this type of place.
I only have instagram and recently mastodon, but don't use much.
Instagram is mainly to share funny videos with my SO.
The mood on twitter last night was jubilant. The memes were perfect, the attitude was amused, so many people were saying they’d finally be free, so many brazilians in fandom circles coming out as brazilian to the shock of their mutuals ahahah It was a beautiful final night. 💙
Does Brazil regularly forbid people from corresponding with companies that do not operate there?
No idea! None that make this as big a stink.
Bluesky's "Catch Up" page (all content on the site, sorted by likes) is nothing but Portuguese now. The amount of new Brazilian users must be astronomical relative to the user base we had yesterday.
Edit: They must have enabled some regional filtering for "Catch Up" since I checked it an hour ago. Looks more comparable to yesterday for me now.
"over 500k new users in the last two days 🤯" per Bluesky official account (posted after your comment).
Compared with 800k new users in February on the first day it had open signups. 6 million total users as of July 2024 per Wikipedia and this stats page.
Good for them!
Although, Orkut was big in Brazil, too. Anyone remember them? :-)
I just saw the other day that the guy who made Orkut (whose name is Orkut???) wants to remake it! 🙏
Yeah, it was a Googler’s 20% project.
It's still 95% Portuguese for me
You can select which languages you want to read using Blusky’s language settings. Perhaps turning off Portuguese would change that?
It will be interesting to see how this will potentially indirectly affect Portuguese people using the platform more. Second order effects in our intertwined world are pretty new and relatively interesting.
Even funnier would be an usage increase in Luxembourg, given how many Portuguese citizens live there nowadays.
Crazy how popular government censorship of the Internet is these days. Used to be that everyone^* was critical of China's great firewall, now it seems inevitable that every country will have it's own silo of internet
While I don't think we'll end up with Internet Silo's so to speak, its certainly a huge shift. With how fast it's been going on it almost feels like the prohibition era in the US. Continuous buildup to having major, open platform - only for all that buildup to come crashing down as people don't like it in practice.
Of course, social media is very different from alcohol. And I don't think it will end in the same way for obvious reasons.
I'm curious to see how this will affect Brazilian society. If it ends up being positive, we may see an unusual domino effect.