This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Sounds like they're likely also to find themselves in legal trouble
At least one can hope
On one hand, fuck Musk. On the other hand, internet from space that can't be blocked by governments is a net positive in my book.
Don't forget that Musk is also the one who intentionally blocked paid service from Ukraine during a critical moment in the early days of Russia's current genocide, because Musk sucks up to Putin. Dude needs to answer for his actions.
How about internet that can be blocked at the whims of a billionaire? At least government is supposed to answer to the people.
Not blockable by any government would be a positive in my book if it didn't imply bloclable by a single billionaire with huge mood swing. Don't forget how musk switched off starlink in Crimea at Putin's request when the Russian realized starlink guided missile were heading towards their ships (Source
How is a billionaire manchild in charge any better, at least a government is accountable to the people.
Controlled by governments or controlled by corpos and the super rich? I say there's hardly an improvement.
Oh? What about internet controlled by a billionaire who makes sure his toxic website featuring his version of “free speech” is always available to protect his profits and spread his bullshit while undermining the policies of a sovereign state?
So much better than the evil government.
Can't calculate the net yet, since we don't know the gross. He has the capability to cause massive damage with the power he wields. It's already clear that he's incapable of providing an unbiased platform. It needs to belong to the people or it can never be trusted
What i love about musk is that he is the best bad example. Maybe someday he'll start a war with some country and then people will start to understand that no single person or group should hold this much power. Because there are also a handful of other people and groups with the same resources who choose to hide in the background.
The Corporate Wars. 🥲
Usually Gwen Shotwell, SpaceX COO, is good at keeping Elon in check and not screwing up SpaceX business. I wonder what happened this time.
This is the intersection of Xitter and SpaceX and it looks like Xitter takes priority.
If you can only access Xitter through SpaceX, can we call the combination "SpaceXitter"?
Logically, now they have to ban Starlink too.
Seems like it's on the table
Tensions between Brazil and Elon Musk's business empire ratcheted up further as the country's telecoms regulator threatened to sanction his satellite broadband company Starlink hours after its top court stood behind a controversial decision to ban social network X from the country.
A senior official at telecommunications regulator Anatel said sanctions against Starlink for noncompliance could include the revocation of its license to operate in Brazil.
I hope and pray what Brazil is doing now (but don't believe it will) becomes a blueprint in choking off Musks cynical use of Freedom of Speech to attempt to overthrow democracies everywhere in service to fascist power
The problem is that this IS the blueprint.
Blocking twitter? That's fine. People generally hate twitter so whatever.
But starlink? That is a genuinely okay product (so long as it isn't too sunny where you live...) and actually does serve a niche for people who can't get better internet. And it rapidly will go from "The government blocked twitter. I guess that is probably good?" to "The government is taking away internet from thousands of people and this is literally worse than china"
Brazilian here, the court couldn’t find anyone in Brazil that represents X to pay the fines and to block the accounts spreading lies about the anti-democratic events of January of last year. Since Elon Musk is one of the major shareholder of both companies they connected the dots and Starlink has representatives in Brazil their account was frozen in order to get the fines owed by Musk’s other company. Later the government found out Starlink was not blocking access to X as any other internet provided was instructed to do so.
Musk is a big supporter of Far-right Brazilians including former president Bolsonaro and his political allies. It was during Bolsonaro’s government that Brazilian army switched to use Starlink.
The free speech agenda that Musk is advertising is not the main issue here but a government that goes against Musks interests and his companies.
Yeah. It’s really sad that a lot of people on remote areas in the Amazon will be affected by a ban on starlink. They also spent quite a bit of money for Brazil’s standards on the equipment as well.
Still, this shouldn’t be the reason to put anyone above the law, no one should be above a county’s law.
If this actually happens it may really backfire on Elon and all companies he’s involved, at least in Brazil.
As you invested your money in one of his companies products and now because of his massive ego/lack of mental stability you either lost support, functionality or access to parts (for maintenance of hardware) and I doubt any of his companies would pay their users for this inconvenience. This would make using any of the products he’s involved with too risky, better to just use a more “mentally stable” competitor even if the service or product is slightly worse.
Remember that time Musk expressed that he was in favor of free speech? Then he censored content on his platform for the Turkish government?
Brazil has an extradition agreement with the United States. Would love to see that shit get put to use.
just pull their business licence and any government grants then and let the world follow suit.
how are people supposed to pay starlink if their accounts are frozen? is starlink offering free internet?
Supposedly Starlink is maintaining service for existing accounts, even if they can't bill them ATM.
Somehow I don't think that'll last all that long.
As of 2024-09-03T22:10:25.545Z, Starlink is now complying with Brazil's X ban [1].
References
“We immediately initiated legal proceedings in the Brazilian Supreme Court explaining the gross illegality of this order and asking the Court to unfreeze our assets,” Starlink says in a post on X. “Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing of our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil.”
If Starlink follows through on its reported vow to ignore the X ban, it is likely to face similar sanctions itself for ignoring a supreme court order.
That could have a big impact in the Brazilian Amazon, where Starlink antennae have spread rapidly since being made available in September 2022, bringing high-speed internet connection to far-flung regions. By the end of 2023 Starlink antennae were being used in more than 90% of the Amazon’s municipalities, according to BBC Brasil.
