11mo ago

Starlink tells Brazil regulator it will not comply with X suspension

www.reuters.com

reuters.com

Elon Musk-controlled satellite internet provider Starlink has told Brazil's telecom regulator Anatel it will not comply with a court order to block social media platform X in the country until its local accounts are unfrozen.

Anatel confirmed the information to Reuters on Monday after its head Carlos Baigorri told Globo TV it had received a note from Starlink, which has more than 200,000 customers in Brazil, and passed it onto Brazil's top court.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X, which is also owned by billionaire Musk, for lacking a legal representative in Brazil.

The move also led to the freezing of Starlink's bank accounts in Brazil. Starlink is a unit of Musk-led rocket company SpaceX. The billionaire responded to the account block by calling Moraes a "dictator."

204 comments

Why does the weird one think that he should have more power than a government?
- Daddy didn't say no enough?
  
  Or he said no too much?
- Why does the weird one think that he should have more power than a government?
  Because he quite literally does in a lot of cases. When is he ever punished?
- His life experiences? Having that much money and power really fucks with someone's perceptions of the world.
- I'm scared of the day Amazon realises they actually do have more power than the government.
  
  They absolutely do not. It is genuinely shocking how many people in this thread fail utterly at comprehending the scale of the power wielded by the government.
  
  They key is to weld that power but not get caught doing it, then along came Elon...
  
  Amazon may have more power than some tiny countries, but not the US govt as your comment would imply
- Because obviously the benevolent billionaire will do so much more good to the world than an evil government specifically elected by the will of the people. (/s)
- Money and racism
- He absolutely shouldn't, but isn't this just a dick swinging contest by both Brazil and Musk?
  I haven't been following it but banning an entire website because they don't have a 'legal representative' in your country sounds bizarre.
  
  Twitter did have an office in Brazil (with legal representation) but after refusing to implement court ordered bans, the court fined them. Elon Musk threw a temper tantrum and shut down the Brazil office and eliminated his legal representation in Brazil.
  Note that Musk will implement bans when requested by authoritarians, just for some reason he draws the line when it's a court order in a democratic country.
  Anyway the situation where Twitter doesn't have legal representation is a situation Elon Musk created. Basically "I fired my lawyers so there's nothing you can do against me now! Checkmate!" So Brazil says "fine, I guess we're banning Twitter then..."
  So Space Karen thinks the the law doesn't apply to him and it's going to cost him a lot of money. Again.
  
  It is when the law says that for a company to operate in Brazil it has to have an appointed legal representative, and you close down your offices and refuse to re-appoint one when the judge demands you to.
  Musk entered a "No pants no service" restaurant, took his pants off, was told to put them back on and refused, and is now surprised he gets no service.
  
  I think that's a bit reductive.
  It's fair enough to expect a large company to have a rep to attend court if they want to do business in your country.
  If they refuse then it becomes a "rule of law" situation - even if it's a dumb law, you can't have a multinational disregard the court's instructions.
  
  It was banned because they refused to comply with anti-hate speech policies. According to musk, moderating his platform would be "political persecution" against those poor nazis.
- I'm on side with Elon and Radio Caroline in this issue.
  He's not broadcasting from inside Brazil's borders, so the regulators can get stuffed.
  
  The ground antennas that enable the service totally broadcast from inside Brazil.
  
  On 3 March 1968, the radio ships Mi Amigo and Caroline were boarded and seized before the day's broadcasting began. They were towed to Amsterdam by a salvage company to secure unpaid bills for servicing by the Dutch tender company Wijsmuller Transport.[6] Caroline was broken up for scrap in 1972.[21]
  Looks like being in an international area doesn't actually make you immune to consequences. If Brazil doesn't want something broadcasting then the only way to keep them from shutting it down is to broadcast from inside a national area. If push comes to shove they can ban Starlink too, confiscate any receivers they can find, and even shoot down the satellites.
He really thinks he is above the law.
Why can't musk get stranded in space like these astronauts at ISS. We would all be better off.
- I mean to be fair, Starlink is a satellite network.
  Edit: this is a shitty Dad joke for those that are taking my comment seriously.
  Most of you don't deserve your humor license if you have one
  
  To be more fair, Brazil is a sovereign country, Starlink is not.
  
  Yeah, and they can do in space whatever they want (probably). But if they want to operate on earth providing a service within a country, they have to abide by the law of this country or stay out of it.
  It's like American Internet companies have to follow EU law if they want to operate in the EU, even if the company itself or their servers are in the US. GDPR privacy laws is a good example.
- He's good for absolutely nothing in this world. The only true altruistic path for him would be euthanasia and donating his water to the tribe.
- He's arguing that it's illegal because they are separate entities.
  
  Supreme Court ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X
  If Starlink refuses to comply or hinders others to comply, they are in contempt to the Supreme Court orders.
  As long as this order is within the law, it shouldn't matter if Starlink and X are connected or not.
  And even if they are in orbit "above" the law, the ruling is only about their operating in brazil not about the satellite itself. And their operations within the country of Brazil do have to comply with Brazilian law and courts.
  
  The order to block Twitter went to all Brazilian ISPs, and Starlink is the only one that didn't comply on Saturday. So the escalation stems from the disregard of an order that everyone was required to obey, but the intertwined nature of both companies being controlled by Musk is both part of the reason why SpaceX would even consider not complying with local law in a country it operates in, and why the Brazilian courts seem to be willing to aggressively enforce their own orders.
  Edit: I'm convinced. This comment as originally written presented the facts out of order.
- Well, technically… he is- until proven otherwise. But so far, it hasn’t happened.
  
  Innocent until proven otherwise?
  I think you get something mixed up here. Innocence is not the same as being above the law. Innocence means you didn't do anything outside the law.
  And it's a fact, that Starlink and X defied orders of the Supreme Court. I wonder what you think must be proven here?
And starlink also gets banned from the country
Tesla next?
- the problem is starlink is actually a good thing, providing decent internet access to places that can't get it otherwise. I think the thing to target is the clear collusion going on between companies in ostensibly unrelated industries to pressure a government into reversing a penalty on one of them.
  
  I think the thing to target is the clear collusion going on between companies in ostensibly unrelated industries to pressure a government into reversing a penalty on one of them.
  Specifically because they are controlled by the same asshat. This is the same exact type of shit he does with stock manipulation and why he was eventually forced to buy Twitter. All his wealth has been generated by cheating and exploitation. I hope Brazil drops the hammer.
  
  Putting up tens of thousands of extra objects into orbit that we now have to track and worry about collisions with other satellites is not a good thing.
  
  clear collusion
  It's less so "collusion" than it is "a billionaire brat using their obscene wealth and plethora of businesses to strong arm their way out of any accountability". We can't consider starlink a "good thing" because it will always be part of that, and any group or government relying on it to any degree should take note.
  
  Nah, Starlink itself is bad, the intention is good.
  
  Can it be a good thing while it's controlled by someone so clearly looking to exploit it's influence for personal gain?
- How would you do that though? The whole point is the signal is coming from a satellite
  
  Starlink's bank accounts are frozen. Musk loves money more than providing service. I doubt he'll provide the service for free.
  
  Need to ship receivers to customers and those could be seized at customs if they're illegal radio equipment.
  Then, new customers would need a VPN to sign up, and old customers might have trouble renewing with local payment methods
The comments here are weird TBH. No, Brazil will not start shooting down satellites. It can just simply outlaw and sanction Starlink, stop anyone from paying Starlink for their internet subscription, and have peeps go around and confiscate ground stations.
Also, they can just go and ask the US to help enforce their ruling, telling them "do you want to be friends with us or Musky boi?"
- That's a really good point. Starlink can ignore this order, but the courts can order banks to stop processing payments to them. Pretty sure Starlink isn't going to "protest" this at the cost of profits.
  Of rourse Starlink could then go be further shady by taking payments in Bitcoin to get around it. It's an interesting arms race to follow.
  
  Brazil is well within its rights to sanction Starlink and prosecute people for evading said sanctions, and have people pay fines and go to prison for buying Starlink with Bitcoin.
  Just like the US does with Iran and Cuba.
- Unfortunately, the US is now fully reliant on SpaceX for access to space now that they decided to rely on corporate spacecraft rather than building our own and Boeing has proven themselves unreliable since that change was made, and now that they finally have a craft they ended up stranding astronauts on the space station until SpaceX can rescue them due to defects. Plus we can't use Russia like we did after the shuttle program ended but corporate space travel wasn't there yet. And SpaceX isn't publicly traded to where it might be possible that enough investors could pressure Musk to cave.
  So I doubt anything will come of it. Brazil will rattle their sabers. Musk will stand his ground, and the US will stay on Musk's side while pretending as much as possible to be staying out of it.
  
  Haha, that sort of dependency can be just as dangerous for a company as it is for the state. You start fucking around like that and antitrust and defense production act start knocking.
  
  Is there precedent for the US government just flat out nationalizing a company like SpaceX?
  
  No 737 has ever leaked helium. So why did the Star liner leak helium? Why couldn't it just pop an emergency exit hatch mid flight like standard procedure? Why? Why? So many questions!
- Easier than than just freeze musks money in brazil
I wonder what would happen if a Brazilian company failed to comply with a US court order.
- There would already be boots on the ground.
- They may get forbidden from operating in the US? Like, the same thing, in reverse?
- They'd be getting ready for some FREEDOM!!!!
When Republicans decide to have 4th of July at this judge's house then I'll believe he's a dictator.
I predict that nations will simply start blowing up satellites in space, creating a shroud of debris which will make space exploration nearly impossible.
- All these LEO satellites are so low it would only cause trouble for less than 5 years. That's part of why they are low.
  If we ever had something as dense as starlink 500km higher though that'd be a different story.
- The satellites trains do it already by themselves, it's ok.
- Seeing what we've done to this planet, it's probably for the best. Space exploration is going to be for the rich and we know how shit they are.
  
  There's nothing we can do to space except make it harder for ourselves to use it. And we do use it, a lot, and not just for rich people stuff.
Lol, then I guess they can provide that access for free, indefinitely, all for just making sure they keep 200K (max) people in Brazil on Xitter.
As of 2024-09-03T22:10:25.545Z, Starlink is now complying with Brazil's X ban [1].
Shoot them down baby!
If I worked for Starlink in Brazil, I'd be on a plane visiting friends outside the country right now. I'm sure an order to arrest EVERYONE who works for Starlink is being drafted right now.
If Starlink is connected to any infrastructure inside Brazil, I suspect that's about to go dark. What the Brazilian authorities need is access to Starlink's internal admin network that controls EVERYTHING. Because Melon Husk is to stupid to pipeline infrastructure for each country. I'll bet it's all shared at some level. I doubt local IT person would risk jail for them and their families or "extended renditioning" to extract access to those networks to shut them down.
That's a brave move. Brazil could just confiscate all star links in the country. Or shoot down the satellites.
- Uh... And how would they do that?
  It's not like starlink publishes a list of all their customers, and you can't simply pick up the signal.
  And shooting down satellites in a geospatial orbit? Good luck.
  
  They aren't that high up. That's how they provide better service than Hughesnet. And yes shooting down a satellite has been possible for decades. People put them up there, they can take them down a lot easier, much smaller payload and the tech/math has been solved since the 1950's.
  As far as banning starlink and confiscating receivers? The same way a country bans and confiscates anything.
  There's also the possibility of compounding fines for violating the broadcast ban after they place it. This isn't Iran, Brazil has access to the banking network to go get that money.
  
  You can use planes to scan for signals. Due to the wider band of the starlink units they could be detected by plane. Of course they can also be spotted on the ground.
  Geospatial? Heh, try again. They are not in Geosynchronous (the word you were grasping for) orbits. Really they are low enough they could be destroyed easier than most. The only problem is there are so many of them.
  Simple legislation baring unlicensed satellite transmitters could effectively make starlink illegal without a license. A prohibitively costly fee would create a situation that would kill the company in Brazil.
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