Honestly, I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, that’s the government reaching waaaay beyond what it should without any real laws to back it up, on the other hand, fuck Musk and if this is what it takes to keep gullible people off nazifascist misinformation and propaganda then 🤷♂️.
The law doesn’t function the same everywhere. When you start/run an international business, it is necessary to understand this. When you don’t, things like this happen.
Ok, but there isn’t anything in the Brazilian body of law that says social media needs to have legal representation in the country to be functional, otherwise TikTok, Reddit and even Lemmy would’ve been blocked long ago, that’s the argument being made. That said, nothing like this has ever happened before, so maybe this could serve as a precedent for a new series of legislations.
There is, the “Marco Civil da Internet” states that a business that works in Brazil needs to respect Brazil’s law, and non compliance may trigger block in it’s service by ruling. The representation don’t need to be on the country, the problem with Twitter is that they closed its offices here trying to avoid compliance in the first place. Elon is trying to enforce his views over Brazil’s law. To force a crisis IMHO.
Based on some opinion articles, there’s something to add: Xitter is bleeding money, fast. Closing Brazil’s office may be just a business move to limit costs. Doing it this way may be a strategy to limit the damage of admitting that the business health is in bad shape. With the added benefits of attack Brazil’s institutions and causing chaos that could benefit the far-right here.
