[chbint]

> Where in the constitution does it say that you can engage in censorship of any kind, let alone political?

Brazilian law does not consider preempting someone from shouting "fire" in a crowded theater a case of censorship. AFAIK, no democratic country would, for all recognize that freedom implies responsibility. Same goes for those trying to shout, without any evidence, "B's adversaries ordered his killing!" (or something similar) 6 days before the election day, even though they are trying to make it look like a "documentary".

> I'm using the same logic that allowed US citizens to publish and export cryptography software by printing source code in a book. This is technology was literally export controlled for national security reasons. (...) And they used free speech to publish the source code (...). So don't compare distorted brazilian notions of free speech to american ones. They sure as hell have a lot more free speech than we do.

Beautiful story. You should tell Snowden. Maybe he'll realize that he didn't need to go into exile in Russia.

[matheusmoreira]

How could they possibly know what the work said? They censored it before it was published. No arguments based on its contents could possibly have been made. It was censored a priori. You make it sound like these ministers watched this thing and determined it was out of line. That's not what happened.

I'd me more accepting of your argument if the documentary had been published and censored after the fact. It wasn't. They preemptively censored the work.

[chbint]

Judges were aware of what the producers themselves claimed the content to be and how the content was being promoted. There were clear references to the elections and to people involved in the elections. Moreover, It's not like members of the electoral court decided to bother the producers out the blue. There was a denounce that the producers were abusing their economic power during the election (which is illegal). Evidence and hearings involving their lawyers were conducted, and that's where and how the judges became aware of everything.

What you have, thus, is a scenario in which 1) the producers were already being investigated for electoral misconduct; 2) they were known supporters of B; and 3) they were boosting and promoting B.'s campaign material in social media disguised as "news" and "documentaries" (which is a way of trying to dodge the accusation of economic power abuse). The case in question is just an acute one.

And even in the face of all this, authorities didn't outright ban the release, but delayed it until after the election (about a week), effectively preventing misuse without imposing censorship.

[matheusmoreira]

> Judges were aware of what the producers themselves claimed the content to be and how the content was being promoted.

> Evidence and hearings involving their lawyers were conducted, and that's where and how the judges became aware of everything.

Still a priori censorship. Lawyers obviously could not have watched it either. Or are you claiming the promotions and producer claims were themselves outright defamatory?

> There were clear references to the elections and to people involved in the elections.

Not a problem. As far as I'm concerned the political nature of the work should enhance the protections afforded to the work, not justify its censorship.

> abusing their economic power

That's the same arbitrary nonsense they slapped Google with when it added a link about the proposed "fake news" law to their website. Literally guilty because the message was too effective and they didn't like it.

That's a law which was rejected by our elected representatives and which these judges rammed down our throats anyway via monocratic electoral court "resolutions", by the way.

> 1) the producers were already being investigated for electoral misconduct

By an obviously partial judge. I don't accept that for a second.

> 2) they were known supporters of B; and 3) they were boosting and promoting B.'s campaign material in social media disguised as "news" and "documentaries"

Not a problem. Just citizens exercising their right to free expression.

> authorities didn't outright ban the release, but delayed it until after the election (about a week), effectively preventing misuse without imposing censorship

They censored the work until it didn't matter anymore. Temporary censorship is still censorship.

[chbint]

Like I've said before, Brazil lives under the rule of a democratic constitution built after much fight against real dictatorship and real censorship, not the rule suggested by you here (which, again, absolutely no country in the world lives by). You're free to disagree with the basic liberal and democratic principles grounding the Brazilian constitution, but whenever you and the constitution disagree, bear in mind that it is the constitution's point of view that's going to prevail.

[matheusmoreira]

> whenever you and the constitution disagree

The constitution and I don't disagree. The constitution says any and all political censorship is prohibited. I cited the exact part of the constitution that backs up my world view.

You have yet to tell me which part of the constitution backs up yours. No brazilian here on HN has ever shown me the part of the constitution that says supreme court judges can censor people if what their political speech is "fake" or "anti-democratic" or whatever.

If it exists, then just show it to me. I can be convinced but nobody's ever shown that to me. Best I ever got was anti-nazism laws which are hierarchically inferior to the constitution. Without such a reference, I'll continue to believe that these judges are above the law and I'm going to make inferences and draw conclusions from that fact.

[chbint]

Your understanding of censorship is fundamentally distinct from that of the Brazilian constitution (BC) because you clearly detach freedom from legal responsibility. In BC, freedom of speech is bounded by the law. That's why you can't (e.g.) say you're going to harm someone without facing the legal consequences.That's also why you can't use words to incite a (virtual or real) crowd in which you're influential to take illegal action against someone (and one can do that without being explicit). Thus, in BC, censorship is what happens if you prevent someone from speaking something they are legally entitled to. In stark contrast, your examples were basically of how speech could be used to bypass law limitations (e.g. abuse of economic power is a well-defined example of illegal activity).

The difficulty in seeing "where is it in the constitution" is likely related to viewing Law texts as a kind of source-code in which everything must be carefully defined and every possibility must be explicitly stated. No constitution work that way. No one could. It may contain some very specific rules, but in general it is an articulation of principles that must be observed by legislators while formulating laws. One of such principles is that our freedoms cannot be detached from our responsibility (i.e. the possibility of being held responsible). Law works that way because one can't predict in advance every kind of situation.

For instance, if I ask you whether you agree that right to life is a fundamental value, you would probably say yes. I assume the same goes for freedom of religion. But what would you say of a father that refuses to do blood transfusion in his newborn son for religious reasons, thus leading to its death? As responsible for the newborn, is he entitled to act this way? Which value should prevail? Freedom of the father to act according to one's religion or the right of the newborn to life? Distinct communities can give distinct answers (e.g. ancient Japanese would perhaps pick honor over life). The point is not whether there's a clear answer or not. The point is that you can't expect to find an "if-then" statement explicit about it in the Constitution or even in laws in general, and that you can't expect that whatever works in this specific situation is fully generalizable to every other situation in which these two values conflict. Applying the law requires interpretation of both the text and the situation in question, and there's a whole discipline dedicated to how that's done (hermeneutics).

The same goes for values such as freedom of speech. Given its intrinsic connection to responsibility, its application is always bounded by the law, and the application of the law is always bounded by the specific situation at stake. That's why we can and should tolerate people believing weird things that go against our best scientific knowledge (juridically, no one cares if you believe that the earth is flat), because we can easily keep them under check using arguments, rational discourse, etc. However, if it becomes part of something illegal like attributing a crime to someone else without evidence (e.g you're using your influence over flat-earthers and their typical suspicion of NASA, to make them believe that the NASA is supporting your political adversary in an attempt to fraud the elections), you must and will be held accountable, (that why it's not really about "judges deciding what's fake"; rather, it is about how one is (ab)using a given discourse.