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- cross-posted to:
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The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he hopes the crisis surrounding the social network X in Brazil might teach the world that “it isn’t obliged to put up with [Elon] Musk’s far-right free-for-all just because he is rich”.
Lula’s comments to the network CNN Brasil came after the supreme court voted unanimously on Monday to uphold the ban on X, which is now largely inaccessible in one of its biggest global markets.
The suspension was first ordered on Friday as a result of the company’s refusal to obey court orders requiring the removal of profiles accused of spreading disinformation and for the social network to name a local legal representative.
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I hope that my country’s goverment makes the other countries realise how dangerous this man is.
brazilian futurism was not what I expected for 2024 but I’m pleasantly surprised
Better than Brazilian dystopianism
Except it does. Money = speech = power and he has the most of any human.
Downvote this all you want, it won’t change the reality that Musk is more powerful than any other human currently alive on earth. I hate him too, but you can’t deny his power.
SCOTUS told America the President could have anyone killed as long as it was an official act. And you’re still going to say the guy with an indirect access to influence has more power?
Hah.
The assesment that he’s the wealthiest person on earth is pretty dubious, actually. The analyses which list the worlds wealthiest people always are, because they have to decide what counts as wealth and how to count it.
Normally that’s fairly easy, but for very powerful people (who, as you point out, the people at the top of those lists are) it gets murky because of things like stocks and options which they could liquidate in theory, but which would crash in value if they tried to actually do so. Does it still count as wealth if it only exists so long as you don’t spend it?
There are also people who’s wealth isn’t held in any currency, or gold, or stocks. How do you measure the wealth or power of a sovereign king, or any other kind of dictator? You certainly can’t neatly put it in a scale alongside people who just have a dragon’s horde of cash somewhere, that wouldn’t be comparing like for like
How do you measure the wealth or power of a sovereign king, or any other kind of dictator?
This is also borne out in practice as you watch the purportedly “most powerful man on Earth” constantly tap dance for Putin in lockstep with the GOP. As a kleptocratic dictator, he informally adds the entire country’s economy to his personal net worth.
The GOP is foaming at the mouth to form a right-wing dictatorship in this country for precisely the reason you are addressing here. A person with powers of complete dictatorship over the world’s biggest economy would definitively make them the most powerful man on Earth without a second even deserving mention.
Turns out that if you are not a Right-wing shit head you can legislate and govern against people with money that try to do as they will :O
It’s all a ruse
The nazis, too, had a lot of power and yet they lost WW II.
Money = Speech = Power
Maybe in the US it is so, but the Citizens United decision does not apply outside of there. Some countries value the power of democracy more than money.
Name one. All I see is lip service. Action is a whole different matter.
I mean what are we looking at right now?
Another example: Unions don’t cave to Tesla in Sweden, this dispute appears to be still ongoing even after another 9 months.
The three most powerful people on earth are the US President, the President of the Russian Federation, and any Captain of an Ohio class submarine
and money chooses who each of these is
By that logic musk would be president right now so doesnt make much sense. Its less about money and more about your family and friends. Almost all presidents of the United states have been descendants from the same british family. Including Obama yes.
You’re going to need to source that.
Not OP but it got my brain curious. Found several different sites about it, here are 2 that seem fairly reputable. Apparently a 12yr old genealogy buff did an extensive search to map the presidents and came across some connections that kept them going till they found the chain of relatives for each one.
It doesn’t seem like “put on your tin foil hat close-related”, more “if you go back far enough most of us are kin in some way related”. Though, the fact that the only one who is not related, was actually appointed instead of elected, does make it look a little weird.
https://www.geni.com/blog/look-whos-related-george-washington-and-all-the-presidents-25451.html
https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Genealogical_relationships_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States
Oh wow. Thanks.
No prob Mr Maggoty. Figured I couldn’t be the only one curious, why make more folks dive down that rabbit hole.
I was completely with you until the conspiracy theory about a single British family and Obama. JFC. 😂
Seriously though. You gotta have a credible source for something like that. Share that Fox News link already!
Thats not a secret my dude and its not even that crazy of a fact. Basically everyone is related if you just go back enough generations.
Almost all of them stem from families that came to america during colonial times.
Related: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stock_Americans
Whats more interesting tho is this chart that doesnt go back quite as far. You can still see that being president is not going to happen unless you have connections
Your own links indicate that the presidents came from separate families. Am l missing a key section that explains that they all came from the same family as you indicated?
If you dialed back the narrow specificity of your original claim, I would agree with your sentiment, as I think most here would. I feel like we may be debating a semantic here.
He also said almost all of the presidents, then links to a genealogy that lists less than half.
I dont know who first claimed the whole “King John” thing or how well proven it is, but whats not disputed is that many of them are pretty closely related. They might not actually all be descendant from one specific guy but for practical purposes they behave like it. They are a closed circle that is impossible to just enter.
https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Genealogical_relationships_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States
Musk becoming president is
very real possibility, average person becoming president is not unless miracles happen. While yes, money alone can’t so easily get you power but it is requirement for it.It is constitutionally impossible for Musk to become president.
How so? Is it about birth place?
Yes, the US constitution requires that the president be at least 35 and a natural born citizen. There is more info here.
Why isn’t Trump president?
Why is there even possibility such man can realistically be president?
I would like to see some evidence that Elon Musk can choose who is captain of an Ohio class submarine.
He cant choose but with money, he can influence people who can influence who is chosen.
Doesn’t seem like it’s working out so well for him on Brazil…
I’m sure he’ll cry about it a lot while wiping his tears away with bills worth more than you or I will ever make in a lifetime.
Uhh okay? He’s so powerful his website (which he didn’t want to buy in the first place) is blocked in a whole country.
A number of whole countries, Brazil is just the most recent.
Real life isn’t a Marvel movie.
Elon is the tech version of Murdoch and is more dangerous because of his worldwide access through Twitter. Unfortunately the extremists will have more of a voice and propaganda will overwhelm the media. Since the media is controlled by billionaires they have no interest in exposing them
Elon is more dangerous because he’s a US government contractor which means his incessent law breaking and bullshittery will mean the US government will go to bat for him in a conflict
Wouldn’t want those military secrets getting out
His wealth also doesn’t mean we need to accept his wealth as valid.
It’s just make believe numbers.
Just like your paycheck
Except they do work for their paycheck, unlike musk with the number he has amassed.
In so many movies that revolves around what would happen if a multi billionaire… Turned EVIL
Well now we know
You don’t get to a billion dollars by being ethical in the first place. At the very least, they are all willing to exploit the labour of hundreds or thousands or more.
And it doesn’t mean Musk has any valid and useful intelligence. He got handed money early in life, got lucky with PayPal, and now thinks because of all of that, his views on the world matter. They don’t. He’s a piece of shit and the world should reject him among many others.
And still salty enough to rename twitter to the company that merged with PayPal since PayPal was such a better name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com_(bank)
Also ask Musk fanboys who Greg Kouri is and they have no idea
Media Bias/Fact Check - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Media Bias/Fact Check:
MBFC: Least Biased - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Very High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceThe Guardian - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for The Guardian:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom
Wikipedia about this sourceDid this bot really just post a fact check of itself
Rating itself higher than AP (or was it Reuters?) even.
Definitely AP. Not sure about Reuters.
Over the past year Musk has removed all masks and clearly believes he can operate beyond the law. His motives are clearly to watch the world burn. He is an extremely dangerous, unpredictable and powerful man, threatening democracy across the globe.
Our governments need to protect us from him. Brazil’s being brave here, I hope they’re just the first.
In fairness, it isn’t like banning one social media website (and a purveyor of misinformation and disinformation at that) will have either national security concern or threatening fundamental freedoms in Brazil. It could be why Brazil had been so bold.
His motives are clearly to watch the world burn.
His motives are money and power. He is indifferent to if the world burns in the process.
He’s already got all the money and most of the power. Now his hobby is far right extremism and anarchy.
I’m an anarchist, and Musk’s behaviour is the farthest possible thing from anarchy. Anarchism is all about working together to build a better world where everyone has all of their needs met, not being a selfish, caustic, aggressive asshole. Elon would have no chance of getting consensus to join any commune anywhere in the world. Unless there’s some insane libertarian commune somewhere.
Anarchism is all about working together to build a better world where everyone has all of their needs met,
Hmm, I was working with the classic disctionary definition which is “a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems.”
But you’re right, anarchism does have that other meaning, so perhaps a better word would be “chaos”.
His actions in supporting Trump in the US, promoting hate and extermist views on X globally, and encouraging civil war in the UK do all fit a chaos agenda. That’s not about money - at least, not that I can see.
He is one of the world’s most dangerous people, however, and I don’t say that lightly. Not least because of his history of being unpredictable.
More governments should follow Brazil’s example and push back.
At some point accumulating more money is no longer about added utility and more like a kind of cynical game score. And musky boy is clearly chasing that high score.
That’s been said, and perhaps it has been true. But when you’re the richest man in the world by a significant margin, you have literally won at money and to remain competitive you need to move onto other things. Like the power of politics, and working to destabilise multiple countries at once.
He doesn’t have all the money. I have some money, Brazilians have money. It’s not enough to have most of the money and power if there’s more he can get.
He has more than anyone else in the history of the world. By any scale, he’s won at money.
And yet he still wants more. It’s not enough to have most of the money, he needs to have all the money.
No. You’re giving him too much credit and actually making it seem like mr. Musk is in any sense of the word capable of self-reflection. He is a burned out, incompetent tech-junkie and nothing but a hypeman for expensive toys someone else develops. He might be allegedly blackmailed by Russian kompromat or just plainly stupid enough to believe the propagandistic image of strong Putin/Russia. The only scary thing about him is, he never takes a fall for his numerous blunders. Yet, before first-worlders become the ones paying for his mistakes he will rest comfortably upon his dollar throne.
He is a discount Tony Stark. Where he wishes he was as cool as Tony and comes up with things Tony did. But is no where even close to being that.
Some call him Phony Stark, or Lex Loser.
Be that as it may, the man has influence and it would be incredibly foolish to discount this because he’s a fucking moron. Sadly, the world is full of extremely incompetent billionaires, and they hold a shocking amount of influence over the world, whether it’s through collusion on layoffs, enforcing RTO in tandem, cutting green initiatives within a month of each other, etc.
Money is basically a vehicle for power and this a ketamine junkie in a garbage truck speeding through every intersection in the world and daring anyone to try and stop him. At least Brazil is trying.
More like Far-right-free fall
More like fart-fight free-ball
More like “Cartwright! Your table is ready. Cartwright!”
We should preemptively offer to extradite
This is why it’s important to have decentralized social media. We cannot have anyone unilaterally deciding what gets talked about and what doesn’t.
Ordinarily, I might agree. However, this suspension is because musk refused to appoint a legal representative for the company in Brazil, IAW Brazilian law. That’s a reasonable ask for a company that’s actively doing business in the country. If a billionaire* crybaby refuses to follow the law, then he gets to deal with the consequences. FA meet FO.
That’s not what the article says, the article says it’s because X refused to ban users and because of that. Not just because of that
You should read up on the whole ordeal. The article is failing to summarize the lengthy legal battle that’s been happening between them for years since Musk’s takeover.
Well, from what I understand when X appoints a legal representative they will then be held responsible for refusing to ban. Is that wrong?
Can you provide a quick summary?
Given the state of Xitter, I would argue that his control of Starlink is significantly more dangerous.
Your right to free speech ends when it turns into terrorism, racism or a call for a coup.
There are some things that should be banned, such as the twitter accounts that promoted the attempt at a coup in Brazil in Jan 8 2023.
These are the accounts that the judge asked to be banned. After Twitter didn’t comply they started sending fines and eventually outright banning it.
Free speech doesn’t mean you can say literally anything. It means the government cannot punish you for your political views. But they can, and must punish racism and anti-democracy speech.
Also, it’s a misconception that a decentralized service cannot be banned. In fact it’s not hard at all
Also, it’s a misconception that a decentralized service cannot be banned. In fact it’s not hard at all
Yes, if banning protocols is acceptable for you.
You mean possible right?
If it’s acceptable, then a wildcard ban of undetected protocols and the “bad” ones from among the detected is possible. China-style.
That is, everything is possible.
Removed by mod
If what these accounts said was so dangerous then why didn’t the government go after the operators of the accounts and arrest them? Instead they tried to silence them by banning them from Twitter. That would only bring more validity to what these accounts were saying if the government has to tell foreign companies to silence them instead of challenging their speech.
If yelling “fire” in a movie theatre is so dangerous why not allow people to do it and don’t ban it and instead just arrest them after the stampede?
That’s a bad comparison. Yelling “fire” in a crowd to induce a panic is illegal and can lead to arrest. But that happens after you actually yell “fire” not before you might yell “fire”. In your example you say ban yelling “fire” when inducing a panic is already banned. Do you want people banned because of pre-crime?
So I agree with you about the whole “arresting people after they yell fire and not before” thing, but we’re talking about people who attempted a coup here, these aren’t hypothetical pre-crimes.
To your earlier point about going after the people who actually did the coup:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-64299892
According to this BBC article, 39 people were indicted within about a week of the attack
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Brazilian_Congress_attack
According to Wikipedia, 86 people have been convicted and sentenced to jail time.
I’m sure there are better numbers but I don’t speak Portuguese so I’m not going to find them.
Also, while this conflict did begin with Brazil wanting them to ban accounts who helped organize the coup attempt, x was banned because they refuse to appoint a Brazilian legal representative.
but we’re talking about people who attempted a coup here, these aren’t hypothetical pre-crimes
We’re talking about the entire country of Brazil — 200 million people — being cut off from using X.
Yes, because the company refused to appoint a Brazilian legal representative.
Thankfully.
We’re talking about the entire country of Brazil — 200 million people — being cut off from using X.
Companies that don’t follow the laws of a country don’t get to operate in that country. The entire country of the United States - 300 million people - are cut off from enjoying Kinder Surprise. Are you equally outraged about that?
When a company says “Lol, we’re not going to have a way for you to hold us accountable” then a country is obviously going to shut them down. They’re not going to let a company ignore their sovereignty like that.
Yeah, it’s too bad it’s only 200 million, and only “X”. All the billionaire-controlled, black-box content algorithm social media sites are a cancer on humanity. Nobody’s freedom is being impinged upon by banning them; they’re the private fiefdoms of oligarchs, who blatantly wield them in service of their own agendas. Banning them is the sensible thing to do, and I can only hope that other governments follow suit.
Like if exactly 200 million people could afford eletronics (saying from experience) or caring about Twitter at all.
people are banned from doing things because they did things. e.g. if you DUI you get banned from future driving not just punished for the past. Hackers get banned from the internet etc
If what these accounts said was so dangerous then why didn’t the government go after the operators of the accounts and arrest them?
Oh, is X willing to help them find the operators of the accounts? Or are you suggesting they do something impossible instead of something actionable?
If the owners of the accounts aren’t operating in Brazil (likely) then there is little Brazil can do to go after them. X is operating in Brazil, so Brazil has the authority to go after X if they refuse to do anything about it.
it’s a misconception that a decentralized service cannot be banned. In fact it’s not hard at all
Could someone expand upon this? I’m don’t know much about tech, but the idea that FOSS decentralized platforms can’t be banned does seem to make sense right? Ban one, another one will pop up, etc. What am I not getting here?
I’ll admit I don’t know how Lemmy works in communicating to each other. However, Internet traffic is labeled in some manner. It has to be to ensure data traverses the web of routers we call the Internet. Lemmy instances have to identify each other to share their information to each other.
Just ban whatever traffic Lemmy instances are looking for.
“I dont agree with your beliefs. You must be far-right nazi.”
Well, it turns out he is a nazi and we don’t agree with him. Oh, you’re probably one too.
Whats certain is your ability to label people based on one comment.
“Man, that hitler guy was pretty all right. …Wait, why are you calling me a nazi?”
I mean, do you just not know what Elon has been up to or what?
Did you get lost?
This argument constantly being repeated is so stupid because its so far away from the truth. Usually when someone is being called a Nazi it is pretty clear why and is true at least to some part. Especially with the fascist loving Elon.
That’s true when they actually are a far-right Nazi.
Fucking thank you. It’s nice to see at least some heads of state actually have the stones to tell Phony Stark to fuck off.
I would tune in to watch Low-T Stark test out a robotic rocket suit live.
Lula is so fucking great. He’s literally just backing up the courts that are applying the law fairly and as-written, which is more than I can say for most leaders.
Don’t get me wrong, Lula is correct on this. But he’s still a scummy politician who has a questionable past
What’s the questionable past?
Raising 20 million Brazilians out of poverty, while making his country the 8th largest economy in the world? I’m sure he’s as corrupt as any Brazilian politician, but none of them have anything that comes even close to that to show for it.
It’s politics. You could have some shoplifting charge from 40 years ago and people will yell about how you’re the worst and attempt to invalid everything you do because of it.
He also got arrested for one of the largest corruption scandals in the history of Brazil. It’s a complex person. We can criticize his vices and praise his virtues at the same time.
Oh arrested? Wow, only guilty people are arrested by states led by their fascist political rivals. If he’s arrested, he must be guilty. That’s how justice works.
You could’ve said “convicted”, but that was annulled and a UN human rights committee found that:
The committee concluded that prosecutors and the lead judge in the investigation, Sergio Moro, showed bias in Lula’s case, violating his right to be presumed innocent.
I’m not a fan of politicians in general, but I’d take these charges more seriously if the people prosecuting them weren’t so flagrantly politically motivated and breaking the rules. Presumably the reason he was tried in the wrong court was because the state was shopping for a judge that wouldn’t give him a fair trial. If he’s that guilty, they’ve muddied the waters by not actually caring about his guilt, and it’s going to be way harder to get anything to stick anymore. Like they were in charge of the whole fucking country, how were they this bad at persecuting him?
What I do know is that when a fascist like Bolsonaro is that mad at you, you might actually be doing something right.
To be fair, you don’t have to be doing anything for fascisti to hate you. That’s kinda their schtick.
Cooking up charges and rigging a court case specifically to take you down is a different level of hate though.
Based Lula.
You’re the only person who used this expression correctly, ever.
