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.”
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.
What part of the joke aren’t you getting???
No I mean it’s literally a satellite network. It’s in orbit.
It’s above the law. Literally.
Edit: a lot of people whooshing this. How? It’s so fucking simple.
Orbit = Space. Brazil = Earth.
Space altitude > Brazil Altitude.
Orbit is literally above guys. Like come the fuck on. It’s a funny joke.
There is literally nothing literal about that
Its a joke. Literally.
Yes. There is. Orbit is a higher altitude than Brazil. Don’t play dumb.
We get the joke. You were being downvoted for your egregious misuse of the word ‘literal’
It’s not misuse. Come on. You can’t fucking honestly convince me that satellites orbit lower than Brazil.
Satellites orbit above Brazil, I agree with you. Your statement however was that satellites are above the rule of law. Given that the rule of law is a conceptual thing, that’s very much a metaphor, hence non literal.
Look, I get your joke, I’m not trying to belittle you or get into an argument or anything. I’m just explaining why you collected like 20 downvotes on it because you seem to want to know.
It’s ok to not pretend to be stupid to push a joke
Pretend?
Technically, I own a little piece of earth from the center of the core to space. I can’t control the skies above me, but I technically own them.
Brazil does not control the space in which the Starlink network operates. If Brazil wants to get in a pissing match over the operation of satellites that they can’t control, it will be about as effective as my efforts to stop 737s from overflying my house at 30,000 feet.
About all they can do is threaten the operations of other Musk properties operating within Brazil.
In a very real sense, Starlink is above the law. They can’t stop him from operating Starlink any more than we can stop foreign radio propaganda from being transmitted into our borders.
Edit: For the exact same reason that Starlink is above the law in North Korea, it is above the law in Brazil.
This is just plain incorrect in any jurisdiction of which I’m aware.
If you own a house in suburbia, then you have a “title” which “entitles” you to certain rights within the boundaries described on set title. These rights will vary by jurisdiction but they’re things like the right to erect fences, erect structures, control access, contain livestock, and quietly enjoy that area.
The concept of “owning” land merely means owning that title and the rights it confers.
Your title will not grant you any rights as regards, for example, air traffic passing over the property in question.
A classic example of this dynamic is mining rights. The specifics will vary a lot by jurisdiction, but generally a title holder does not have any rights as regards the minerals located below their property. In many cases this might be moot, given that the only way to mine those minerals may be to buy the property and construct a mine. However it does present some interesting intricacies of the law. For example in Australia you may be authorised to access private property for the purposes of a mineral survey (using a metal detector …) but it’s a fairly fraught practice being “technically allowed” might be small comfort when faced with a shotgun.
Brazil does not have title to or otherwise control that part of the sky where Starlink operates its satellites.
You just used a lot of words to repeat what I said, while claiming I was incorrect.
The part where you said you own a little piece of earth down to the core, and up to space is incorrect.
The part where you said Brazil does not “have title” to the sky implies a very limited understanding on your part.
Brazil is a sovereign nation, the bearer of the force from which these rights derive and the one who has the power to change them. Sovereign nations very famously have the right to control their airspace by force and while none have tested it I don’t doubt they can remove satellites from their low earth orbit if they give sufficient time to remove them.
The difference between musk and Brazil is that Brazil has an Air Force in addition to just a space program.
I’m not really interested in talking about sovereign nation powers with someone who got their political education from wikipedia.
Try elsewhere, thanks.
What a clever and well written response that clears up any speck of doubt in my mind about your capacity for communication.
That’s not even my joke >.>
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.
Oh my god how is this joke that fucking difficult to understand
Ever thought of the possibility that your joke just isn’t good…
It’s not supposed to be >.>
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.
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 issue of freezing star link accounts predates this shut down and was the result of some issue with x.
I’ve got no love for musk, but if the government is going after starlink because they have issues with x, it’s hard for me to disagree with him when he calls this dictator like. And thus it’s hard for me to fault him for using it as leverage.
If it’s about paying fines then that’s standard procedure. You can’t limited liability yourself out of fines: If the subsidiary doesn’t pay they fall onto the owner, said owner is Musk, said Musk has assets in Brazil in the form of Starlink accounts, hence, you impound them. If he had parked his Yacht there they would’ve gone for that.
This reminds me of an old, really old case: Some nobleman owed a Hanseatic trader money over a grain shipment. Refused to pay. Had the gall to show up in Hamburg. Trader had him arrested, noble threw a fit, appealed to the Emperor. Emperor said: “Dude that’s Hamburg, they DGAF if you’re a noble short of forbidding you to take up residence in the city, pay up”. Ended up selling most of his land to get out of debt and therefore prison, and an important lesson about assumed privilege was learned.
You can limit liability by creating separate entities and this is absolutely the standard, at least in the US. You would have to be very ignorant, or have sought no outside counsel, if you have some kind of decently profitable business and haven’t done so. It’s the whole point of these legal structures, such as LLCs. I don’t know the particulars of the case, nor the particulars of Brazilian law, so I don’t really know if it the case here.
That being said, speaking from an only slightly informed US perspective, if they are suing Musk himself, then yes they can absolutely go after his assets, which would include ownership in Starlink and X. However, if they fined X, it wouldn’t even remotely be a stretch that they do not have the legal authority to lock down Starlink accounts, as they are two separate entities that are presumably linked only by common figurehead.
State fines against a company aren’t a civil matter. Brazil isn’t suing anyone, they’re enforcing compliance with law by means of fines and the laws governing that would be written shoddily indeed if you could avoid fines by incanting “limited liability” like some sovereign citizen. “I’m not breaking laws, I’m doing limited liability business”.
Nor did I say anyone was suing anyone. I was just drawing up an example of a case how they could go after both entities. In this case, it appears the fine was levied against X, and not Musk.
And no one is talking about “avoiding fines.” WTF are you even on about? We are talking about them seizing Starlink assets because of fines levied against X. Musk doesn’t even own a majority share of SpaceX (who owns starlink). You are confusing “the face of” with “the legal entity.”
You are. Who is going to pay the fine against X? If Starlink doesn’t like it they’re free to sue Musk for the money back. They can cancel a couple of his shares to cover it. I don’t care. Brazil doesn’t care. The fine has been issued, and it’s going to be paid.
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.
You’ve got it backwards. Right in the article, it notes “The decision to freeze Starlink’s accounts stems from a separate dispute over unpaid fines X was ordered to pay due to its failure to turn over some documents.” The escalation of Starlink not complying comes from that, not the other way around.
Again, seemingly backwards. It was the government of Brazil that used their “intertwined nature” to freeze Starlink accounts, and Musk has, in turned, used that “intertwine nature” as leverage.
To be clear, I hate defending Musk, but I don’t see why it makes sense to freeze Startlink accounts if it’s X that hasn’t paid the fines. Can they go after any company that he owns stock in? Can they start seizing Teslas? How about MS infrastructure, if he holds some ownership in that company too? I’m just not sure the government of Brazil is on the right side of this, and not simply using their power to punish Musk. If people said “I don’t really care and I’m glad they are holding his feet to the fire” that would be one thing, but people are arguing that it’s actually Musk who is doing all of this, while it appears that it’s actually the Brazilian government that “intertwined” them and Musk just responding in kind.
I’ve looked closer (at other articles, too). You’re right - the freezing of the SpaceX accounts came from the same order that ordered that Twitter be blocked, and before SpaceX announced it would refuse to comply.
The proper thing to do is to recognize the legally distinct personhood of SpaceX, which isn’t part of Twitter, even if Twitter/X itself is wrong on the law.
We need more people like you.
I wonder if he would have complied with the court order if the Brazil government hadn’t done this, if so then yeah, I guess that’s not shitty.
My gut says he would have started drama regardless.
It certainly wouldn’t be surprising.
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?
I think you got something mixed up here. I never said he was innocent. I said he is above the law until proven otherwise. The guy hasn’t suffered a consequence for a single action.
Until he does- he IS above the law.
Yeah… I’m still waiting on the orange one to face some consequences…
This is literally a thead about how brazil is blocking X and froze starlinks accounts and assets.
And my comment was in response to something different. You’re free to move along unless you can show that you’re authorized to police the comments in this thread.
For fucks sake, YOU replied directly to MY comment.
Please move on yourself, if you don’t want replies from people you talked at
Right. My comment was in response to something YOU said about his accountability. Brazil is slapping his wrist. Nothing more.
This is NOT him facing consequences. This is not accountability.
How about you spend more time trying to understand what people are saying, and less time being butthurt because you think they’re disagreeing with you.
he’s above the law because he will not experience legal consequences.