Gregory's Serveri just dont understand why fedi does not seem to be talking about brazil potentially banning twitter in the next 12 hours
 37 comments
@laurenshof I did a Mastodon search for “Brasil” and it looks like there’s quite a bit more discussion of these events by the fediverse’s Portuguese-language speakers. like, i feel pretty confident in claiming that i have a pretty good tabs on whats happening on fedi (couldnt write my newsletter otherwise lol), and this lack of conversations about what seems to be quite impactful on the state of the social web is something ive not really seen before  @laurenshof At a risk of sounding simplistic, it’s news from the Global South and from a country where a lot of technologists are (1) conservative (2) don’t support Alexandre de Moraes (justice of the Supreme Federal Court involved). OTOH, Brazilians like me are burnt out from meta discussions and discussions involving Twitter/X, so while I’ve talked about it with Brazilian friends in private, I feel like I don’t have mental bandwidth to discuss it in depth with foreigners. @laurenshof (It just hit me that it may not register as particularly extraordinary when we’ve had court orders to block services like Telegram in the past, and Twitter/X has been basically at war with Alexandre de Moraes for a while.) @laurenshof Welp, it’s extraordinary now that our Supreme Federal Court blocked financial resources from Starlink to guarantee Twitter/X pays its fine. I’ll eat my hat. @anna interesting, thanks! If you have the bandwidth for it, would you mind sharing an article (can be in portuguese) that you think gives a good analysis of the situation? Would be nice to hear a brazilian perspective on it. No worries if not! @laurenshof I’ll see if I can find something that also explains some of the intricacies of Brazilian law!   @js yuup, pretty big signup wave. showed up quite clearly on the top posts of the day ( https://bsky.app/profile/skyfeed.xyz/feed/catch-up ) @laurenshof @js I checked FediDB for mastodon.com.br and not seeing any sort of influx i think the real question here is: what do these new folks think about the fediverse symbol @js @laurenshof But is that the pentagram, the asterism or the Threads planet one?? https://symbol.fediverse.info/  @laurenshof I saw an article about it. I think many of us are a little tired of Twitter. It's similar to dealing with an ex (pun intended)— there comes a point when you stop thinking about them, stop talking about them, and try not to care. I assume @w7voa will probably post about it post-factum.  @ojars @laurenshof That’s where I’m at personally. Yes I acknowledge that out in the world someone still uses Twitter, and so what happens to it has some effect on someone. But in *my* life, it’s an abusive ex I left years ago, and frankly I’m tired of them being brought up over and over when I’m trying to move on. oh for context, why im noting the contrast: the currently most popular post of the last 12h on bsky is an extensive explainer thread for the situation in brazil regarding X https://bsky.app/profile/sophifn.bsky.social/post/3l2tgdvfhxn2v @laurenshof That’s a good thread, but with one missing piece—the law that governs the use of internet in Brazil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Civil_Rights_Framework_for_the_Internet @laurenshof This will also give you some context about where Alexandre de Moraes in particular stands when it comes to social media regulation (in Portuguese, but shouldn’t be difficult to translate it into English with automatic translation services): https://www.tse.jus.br/comunicacao/noticias/2024/Maio/em-evento-presidente-alexandre-de-moraes-defende-regulamentacao-das-redes-sociais @laurenshof I just expect the process to sign up for BlueSky is a bit easier. I may also be a moron.  @laurenshof  It's not Lula doing it - it's the supreme court of Brazil ordering it because Xitter is refusing to comply with Brazilian laws. Internet companies are required to have an agent in Brazil who can represent them and be held responsible for their conduct, unpaid fines, etc. Xitter has failed to name such a person (and will probably have a hard time finding someone now, since they're refusing to pay 20 million Reais in fines).  @laurenshof Does this mean that Fedi people have lost the enthusiasm, the drive to have _more_ people joining? A "we are enough already here" mentality? Because that's worrying. Mastodon was first released 8 years ago. Bluesky didn't even have what we consider *basic* features 1 year ago. And it seems to be gaining more and more momentum. Whoever thinks the Fediverse is fine is wrong. This is a major threat and we risk losing all the steam gained in the aftermath of the Twitter collapse.   @laurenshof I didn't see any headline news about Brazil banning X/Twitter so I looked for it. I would like to congratulate Brazils courts for their good taste and willingness to demand Musk takes some accountability for his right wing propaganda. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/8/29/brazils-top-court-threatens-to-ban-elon-musks-x  @laurenshof I'm watching this as have already written (academically) about other socmed issues regarding Brazil. It's a, key moment in monopoly socmed versus national policy and legislation. @laurenshof@indieweb.socia  @laurenshof I’m just glad that for once fedi isn’t going nuts about another platform. @laurenshof it is Twitter’s problem not mine; maybe I’d care if was on Twitter but… I’m not The problem with Twitter is that it has always gotten so much free amplification and publicity because it was so seductive to reporters. From every famous dogpiling or “controversial” Elon Musk tweet the direct exposure was a fraction of how much it got talked about off platform as much as everybody who cares wants to deny it. @laurenshof I expected that Elon would, at the last minute, appoint a Brazilian legal representative, for the purpose of stalling. But maybe not!  Russian government banned Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook in 2022 and no one talked about it here. Most people simply continue using all these services through VPNs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ |
@laurenshof I don’t know. It’s all over Bluesky.