Andrew Mueller explains why Brazil has banned the social media platform X. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In episode 23, season seven of the Simpsons, Springfield's appalling mayor, Diamond Joe Quimby, beleaguered by querulous, pestilential voters, asks the rhetorical question that defines our age.
Are these morons getting dumber or just louder?
It is an inquiry all the more perspicacious for having been posed in 1996, eight years before the launch of Facebook, 10 before the launch of Twitter.
This week, Brazil decided that it was no longer interested in the answer.
Freedom of speech is not freedom of aggression.
Freedom of speech is not freedom to destroy democracy, institutions, dignity and others honor.
Freedom of speech is not freedom to spread hate speech and prejudice.
Liberdadi Liberdadi di propagazion di discourso.
This past weekend, Brazil banned Twitter, now officially known, if really only by its weirdo proprietor and his legions of online acolytes, some of whom might not be AI powered bot accounts as X.
Shortly afterwards, Brazil's Supreme Court unanimously upheld the decision.
Elon Musk initially sought to circumvent the judgment by relaying X through his satellite Internet provider Starlink, but as of this broadcast, Starlin link has also buckled those among X's Brazilian customer base of some 22 million people still hankering for a media diet of racism, conspiracy disinformation, misinformation and inane arguments about absolute bullshit conducted by woeful idiots.
At least those who cannot be bothered with a VPN or don't fancy paying the hefty fines now attached to accessing X illegally will have to go elsewhere.
People my age aren't really in the hab of watching TV news or reading the news, and X was a way to get news from around the world.
So I've lost touch a little with what's happening around the world and a way of entertaining myself.
The foreign desk explainer would appreciate at this time some due credit for the amount of energy we spent trying to find out what time they feed the monkeys at Sao Paulo Zoo.
We were going to suggest attending this as a plausible alternative to scrolling through X.
Seriously, it would have been hilarious.
Brazil's yanking of X's plug is the culmination of a long running spat between Musk and Brazilian authorities.
Having a lot of money does not allow you to be disrespectful.
This citizen is an American citizen.