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Notes -
Huge news from South America today.
A single judge in Brazil has not only blocked X in the country, but is requiring Apple and Google to remove VPNs from their phones, and is imposing a $9,000 daily fine (basically a year's salary) for anyone in the country caught using a VPN.
Elon Musk attracted the ire of this particular judge, Alexandre de Moraes, when he posted about the judge's previous autocratic attempts to silence free speech and to jail opponents of the current regime led by Lula da Silva. The legal system is very strange in Brazil, and apparently Supreme Court judges have huge unilateral powers to try cases and enforce laws as they see fit. This particular judge has done so thousands of times.
Now X is banned.
With dissent being silenced, and a corrupt socialist in charge, it seems that yet another Latin American country is set on the path to tyranny.
He's going after starlink now too. A trial run of what the Dems would do here I suspect: full court lawfare against one target at a time and any business that associates with them.
Well Silicon Valley wants to run the US, let's see if they can run around corrupt South American judges first.
Balaji's "network" is finally getting into a hot confrontation with nation states. There's going to be a lot to learn from this one.
I'm really interested in how they'll try to shut down VPNs and Starlink practically. It's pretty much impossible to jam so they're going to have to try to prevent smuggling of the terminals or successfully pressure the US to get to Musk and his infrastructure, which I find unlikely.
Musk seems determined to go full John Galt here so there's a double-digit chance he'll end up in jail, X will be banned in the U.S., and Starlink will be given to "reliable people" to run.
He's not Galt. He's Rearden.
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