Yes, for the first time ever, I’m writing in English. Maybe I won’t do that anymore. Maybe I’ll start now and never ever stop. Tomorrow will tell.
Everyone knows Brazil is new to democracy. This year, the justice department of election passed a law saying that the web is similar to tv and radio networks (wich are public concessions). But it isn’t. We maintain our sites and blogs with our own resources, sometimes with a crappy and expensive service wich should be overseen by government but isn’t. And its agency, Anatel, which supposedly was created to regulate the telecommunications is under attack from inside government, that is still frozen in time, with laws created TWENTY years ago, when telephones e cellphones were luxury articles, not available to everyone. This is the current scenario.
Today twitter, the most used micro blog here in Brazil is under attack. One of our elections sections, in Ceara, has ruled that a fake political profile should be taken down by the service. (Politicians are forbidden to have any type of interaction on social media channels, like youtube, twitter, blogs or anything else). Nothing much wrong here, right? But instead of going after Evan Willians, the owner of twitter inc, the judge shut down A BLOG by mistake , Twitter Brasil, created by fans of the service.
The online news site IDGnow! called the attorney who represents the mayor candidate to the city of Fortaleza (Luizianne Lins), who started the lawsuit. She (the attorney) said that “we just did a search and noticed that there was a site called twitterbrasil.org. Then we asked that the owners of the site were notified [about the fake profile and send the IP addresses], considering that the search result related to twitter was pointing to that domain.” Also, she said that she knows Twitter is a foreign company but she truly believes that they HAVE an office in Brazil and this is twitterbrasil.org. “The name is the same”, she said.
The judge who ruled the case has a brain of the same size of the attorney. According to the IDGnow reporter, he seemed confused when he was told that Twitter don’t have an office in Brazil. “How can we be sure that both the sites are not involved? There isn’t a way. We just asked that the profiles to be taken down and the IP sent back to us. They just need to say (officially) that they have nothing to do with the service.”
Our justice system already tried to block Youtube (twice), demanded data from Google US threatening to shut down orkut and almost blocked Wordpress.com. It’s more than obvious that our justice system, judges and lawyers, in general, don’t use internet, they don’t know how it works AND DON’T EVEN BOTHER LEARNING ABOUT IT. They make mistake after mistake *every time they have to judge something like this*. Shamefully, Brazil is becoming famous for cutting down (or threatening to) web services - which penalizes everyone.
Of course brazilian blogosphere and twitters and some lawyers who understand this digital world are already moving on. We hope, really, Brazil wake up and allow all of its citizens to speak freely on web. Help us, putting this notice everywhere. We need help to have freedom in Brazil. Brazilian web is under attack. And Twitter, the micro blog is going down with us.
update: from IM, raquel camargo (one of the owners of twitterbrasil.org) told me that the server called saying they’re sorry and that they will republish the site. The fact remains: we don’t have free speech in Brazil. Citizens cannot publish their political opinions. Big news sites are forbidden, by judges, to publish political opinions - even tough it is a constitutional right in Brazil. But for how long?
If you have a translator (portuguese to english) read other news about the case:
Jornalistas da Web (Web Journalists)
there is more, much more, in twitter brasil, back online
Thanks to RafaCST for the english revision.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Twitter Brasil e os tiros que saem pela culatra | BlogueIsso! // Sep 9, 2008 at 7:38 pm
[...] O TRE apronta de novo TRE CE barra o blog Twitter Brasil TRE/CE tira o blog Twitter Brasil do ar Twitter under atack in Brazil [...]
2 Justiça e Internet: mais um episódio equivocado at Twitter Brasil // Sep 9, 2008 at 8:29 pm
[...] http://www.ladybugbrazil.com/2008/09/09/twitter-under-atack-in-brazil/ [...]
3 » Twitter Brasil volta ao normal. Mas e aí? - Raquel Camargo // Sep 9, 2008 at 8:40 pm
[...] http://www.ladybugbrazil.com/2008/09/09/twitter-under-atack-in-brazil/ [...]
4 Colegas, isso não se faz… | DireitoeTrabalho.com // Sep 10, 2008 at 1:15 am
[...] Lu Freitas fez um artigo ótimo sobre o assunto e publicou ele em inglês, para facilitar o acompanh…. Dá para votar nele no Digg para dar mais visibilidade [...]
5 Twitter Brasil no ar novamente! by Fernando Souza // Sep 10, 2008 at 1:42 am
[...] http://www.ladybugbrazil.com/2008/09/09/twitter-under-atack-in-brazil/ [...]
6 Blog é atingido por bala perdida | CgBrasil.net // Sep 10, 2008 at 2:56 am
[...] http://www.ladybugbrazil.com/2008/09/09/twitter-under-atack-in-brazil/ [...]
7 Rafa // Sep 10, 2008 at 7:52 am
Passou desapercebido: 2º parágrafo - law no lugar de laq. maintain no lugar de mantain. 3º parágrafo - shut down 2 vezes.
8 Felipe Lobo // Sep 10, 2008 at 12:18 pm
That’s one of the most stupid decisions made by the brazilian justice ever. The fact that judges have no idea what internet and, specifically, Twitter are is no excuse to this kind of injustice.
As citizens, we HAVE to be under the law, even when we don’t know it. Brazilian justice should try to learn what Twitter is before trying to shut down the wrong site (!?!).
I’m ashamed, as a brazilian citizen, to see this kind of stuff occuring here. I hope that the recation made by brazilian bloggers and twitters have some effect.
9 Luizianne Lins prefere censurar o Twitter do que melhorar Fortaleza | Terramel // Sep 10, 2008 at 1:17 pm
[...] http://www.ladybugbrazil.com/2008/09/09/twitter-under-atack-in-brazil/ [...]
10 tigo di // Sep 17, 2008 at 2:32 am
Parabéns pela iniciativa de postar sobre esse assunto em inglês.
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