The state of the art in Brazil: a global perspective on the protests against the Starlink-based Internet-based communication platform (Telegram)
NetBlocks says that there is variation by provider in Brazil, and right now they are all trying to see what works. “Brazil has a diverse network infrastructure with lots of ways for data to enter and leave the country, so there isn’t that centralized choke point and ‘kill switch’ we see in [some] authoritarian-leaning countries.”
People who use circumvention tools can be fined as much as 80,000 reais ($8,500) per day by the Brazilian court if they use a virtual private network (VPN) in violation of the ban.
Mobile apps like X’s Android and iOS apps don’t rely on DNS, though, so DNS filtering alone is not enough to block all connections to a web platform. The way some Brazilian ISPs are using the address “sinkholing” is to send traffic to a different server than what the users intended.
When Brazil’s Federal Police obtained a court order in April 2023 to block the communication platform Telegram, they said it was because it wouldn’t give them the full information about users involved in neo-Nazi group chats. Some large ISPs began blocking Telegram immediately. “However, the block was not implemented by all ISPs in Brazil, nor was it implemented in the same way,” the group wrote. “This suggests lack of coordination between providers, and that each ISP implemented the block autonomously.”
A X spokesman directed WIRED to a post from the Global Affairs team, after responding to a request for comment. X is committed to protecting the freedom of speech for our users in Brazil and around the world, the post reads.
Starlink was caught in the crosshairs too: The assets of Musk’s other company were frozen by the court as they were part of the same economic group as X, meaning that they could be used to pay off fines. After initial resistance, Starlink backed down and said it would comply. Experts who spoke to WIRED say that increasingly, it seems that Musk has overplayed his hand.
Soon after Musk took over the company, he had a legal crisis that employees scrambled to avoid. The company was warned that it risked being blocked by the judiciary if it did not keep its promises to keep safeguards in place. The then-president and his supporters allegedly spread misinformation about the security of the country’s elections in order to cast doubt on the results. The company was promised a reversal of the moderation policies that were in place, as well as a form of “free speech absolutism” that has allowed hate speech and misinformation to pour onto the platform.
Musk has continued to insult the court. He posted a seemingly artificial image of Moraes behind bars last week, with a fake text saying that one day, he will be real, and another comparison to the famous Harry Potter villain.
“Ever since April, he has been toying with the image of Moraes, the legitimacy of the Supreme Court and escalated in a problematic way,” alleges Bruna Santos, a researcher and activist with the civil society coalition Coalizão Direitos na Rede in Brazil. “He was fully aware and he knew what the consequences would be.”
Musk Cannot Go Home Despite What he Has Learned about ‘Muhammada’s Internet Content ‘Cosmology Is All You Need’
After taking over the micro-publishing site, Musk lost company access to its third largest market and over 40 million users. He seems to have retreated into a corner despite his online statements.
