[luizfzs]

The only democratic way for a foreign agent to meddle in another country's politics is by being elected.

Everything else is just bullshit.

What you are saying is that anyone can buy a media platform, whatever platform it is, and play 'arbiter' of truth? Because that's he is doing. He has no right to defy a judge's ruling. He's not a Brazilian citizen. He has no legal representation there. His company has no legal representation there.

His only standing is his ego, which is pretty fragile, given how much of a cry-baby he is.

[hexage1814]

Many people suffer from some sort of Musk derangement syndrome and put way too much focused on him to avoid discussing the facts of this case. Because they know the facts aren't on their side.

They make this to avoid discussing that the actions of the Brazilian Supreme Court were actually illegal. It's not him "playing arbiter of truth", you will find countless brazilian legal experts, such as Sebastião Coelho da Silva, saying that what the court has been doing in the last 4 or 5 years is totally illegal.

For instance, they have no power to open an investigation where they are the victim, the investigator, and judge, all in the same time and figure to go after random people around the country. Brazilian constitution doesn't allow prior censorship (which is what happens when you block someone's profile on social media, you block the things they would say in the future). The 8/1 rioters shouldn't been tried by the highest court because they have no legislative immunity, etc, etc. Crimes and more crimes.

Regardless of anything, refusing to obey those censorship orders coming from Brazilian Supreme Court were the morally right thing to do.

[matheusmoreira]

This is not a democracy.

Who voted for these judges? Not a single person. Why do they get to ignore the laws put in place by our actual representatives?

Our constitution is ABSOLUTELY clear on this matter.

> Any and all censorship of a political, ideological and artistic nature is forbidden

1. The accounts that this judge is after were engaging in political speech.

2. A government official ordering these political accounts blocked and their political posts deleted matches the "any and all censorship of political nature" clause.

3. The order is therefore unconstitutional.

As you can see, it's a very simple argument. There should have never have been an order for Musk to defy to begin with.

Why do they keep getting away with it? How do you explain this?

Our representatives move to impeach this guy as demanded by the citizens they represent, then they back out at the last second. Their lawyers advised them to back out due to the risk of retaliation by the supreme court. How can you call this a democracy, when our elected representatives are clearly cowering in fear of an unelected judiciary?

[luizfzs]

Does that mean the US is also not a democracy because the supreme court judges are also appointed by the president, just like in Brazil?

> Our representatives move to impeach this guy as demanded by the citizens they represent, then they back out at the last second. Their lawyers advised them to back out due to the risk of retaliation by the supreme court. How can you call this a democracy, when our elected representatives are clearly cowering in fear of an unelected judiciary?

If that is true, he should definitely be removed. I definitely concede that he is overreaching in some decisions. I don't always agree with them. However, if a political actor says they are going to invade Planalto to overturn the government, that is an attack to democracy, and protecting the constitution is exactly the attribution of the supreme court.

Freedom of speech in Brazil, as far as I know, ends when you attack democracy. Democracy is the most valued thing in the constitution.

However, the noisy far right-wing in Brazil is very dramatic and will create arguments that are not falsifiable just to pretend they have an argument.

Source: I'm Brazilian.

[HDThoreaun]

There is potential for that, yes. Fortunately the supreme court has not yet decided to ignore the other branches of government like the brazilian one has.

[matheusmoreira]

> Does that mean the US is also not a democracy because the supreme court judges are also appointed by the president, just like in Brazil?

Major SCOTUS decisions are often posted and debated here on HN. I've never seen a case where they monocratically violated the letter and the spirit of the law. Not once.

The judges there apparently respect the laws enacted by the elected representatives of the american people. This is evidence of a working democracy. So I don't have any reason to believe the USA is a dictatorship of the judiciary. I suppose it has the potential to become one but it sure as hell isn't one right now.

> I definitely concede that he is overreaching in some decisions. I don't always agree with them.

I'm happy we agree on at least that. Really. This matter is so polarized. It's been extremely difficult to find any common ground at all with my fellow brazilians.

> However, if a political actor says they are going to invade Planalto to overturn the government, that is an attack to democracy

The supreme court and electoral court have been violating the constitution since before the elections. I saw them disproportionally censor Bolsonaro and his supporters for "fake news".

Even that was a pitiful excuse. They censored people associating Lula with communism and socialism, for example. That's not even close to "fake news", the man is a self-admitted socialist. They censored people claiming he was a friend of the venezuelan dictator as "fake news", despite the fact he is clearly associated with him. They said it was "fake news" and we had to watch Lula roll out the red carpet for the guy months into his mandate. It was a nationwide gaslighting campaign.

So not only did they censor political speech which is already unconstitutional, the excuse they used was completely false too. And they got away with it.

I witnessed them censor a political documentary a priori. Before they even watched the thing, they decided it was "fake news" and blocked its publication. An obviously biased documentary whose contents only a fool would believe to begin with. Their censorship of it is one of the most notable facts in the history of our democracy. A priori censorship is something that hasn't been seen in this country since last century's military dictatorship. That was the moment I woke up and started paying attention to all this.

What are we supposed to do? Who are we supposed to turn to when the judiciary and the supreme court usurps all power? Who do we call upon when the guys supposed to enforce the constitution start violating it with complete impunity? Nobody does anything about it.

One answer to that is what happened on January 8th. These guys decided to turn to the brazilian military. They asked the military to bring order to this mess. Military said no. We all know the aftermath of it.

So I don't believe there was even an attempt at a coup. They did not try to seize power for themselves. It was just a standard protest that ended with vandalism, like most of the others. Had the military actually tried something, then it'd make sense to call it an attack on democracy, a coup attempt.

> protecting the constitution is exactly the attribution of the supreme court

I agree. I just don't believe they are doing that. They cannot protect the constitution by repeatedly violating it.

> Freedom of speech in Brazil, as far as I know, ends when you attack democracy. Democracy is the most valued thing in the constitution.

I believe it ends when someone picks up weapons and actually tries to seize power by force. That's the only moment where democracy is justified in defending itself. Not one second before.

The constitution even mentions that: paramilitary assembly is prohibited.

I have yet to find the article that says censorship of anti-democratic ideas is allowed. Those are all valid political positions as far as I know. And censorship of political positions is prohibited. There's nothing in there that says censorship of "fake news" is allowed either.

> However, the noisy far right-wing in Brazil is very dramatic and will create arguments that are not falsifiable just to pretend they have an argument.

Well, I am not really a representative of the brazilian right wing. I am often accused of being one but I'm not.

Do you disagree with the argument that I made above? It's not some prepared discourse. It's a good faith argument based on what I believe as a brazilian citizen, and was influenced by the many discussions I've engaged in about this topic here on HN.

I've never seen another brazilian refute it. I've had people argue those points with me by citing laws lesser than the constitution, by getting into pedantic arguments over the definition of censorship as if banning the brazilian right from social media and deleting their posts wasn't a clear case of it, by arguing about "isonomy" which is completely irrelevant, by straight up calling me a moron for presuming to do the judge's job as if the contradictions weren't there in plain sight for all to see. I've yet to see a single convincing argument that proves that what these judges are doing is not censorship.