The court arrested the Brazilian Facebook account by $ 6 million due to WhatsApp – BBC

In Brazil, the court ruled to block on the Facebook accounts of more than $ 6 million due to the fact that owned by Mark Zuckerberg messenger WhatsApp refused to provide access to correspondence drug

Frozen on Facebook invoice amount -. WhatsApp fines that the messenger had time to save up for a few months in Brazil. Since the messenger do not have their own accounts in the country, financial litigation fell owns them company

In Brazil the case of WhatsApp is not the only one:. Authorities often block the work of messenger for several days and the decision about blocking endure various regional judges

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for example, in early May, the Brazilian telecom operators were obliged to block the work of the popular messenger for 72 hours for the same defiance that was met with the Brazilians very aggressively. One day the lock was removed.

In March, Facebook vice president in Latin America, Diego Jorge Dzodan was caught by the police and was imprisoned night: the judge (the same that makes decisions about blocking messenger) ruled that a man involved in the “concealment” of correspondence drug.

The degradation of democracy

according to analysts, the steps to limit the work of the messenger because of the refusal to issue the correspondence of users can lead to the industry’s degradation and seriously aggravate the situation . with censorship on the Internet

«It gives a strong feeling of uncertainty among other players in the market and discourages others applications developed in Brazil”, – noted expert in the legal sphere Fernando Stachchini the material FT .

The threat to freedom of speech in the country and said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. According to him, “if the Brazilians make it impossible to communicate the way they want, it is a terrible blow to democracy».

Most of the major technology companies have already introduced so-called through-coding, in which the content of the correspondence management messenger simply available, but the encryption keys are users.

This type of encryption is implemented in WhatsApp, making it technically impossible for the company to provide the correspondence drug authorities. Nevertheless, the authorities insist on deciphering and do not go into technical details.

At the end of 2015 more than 60% of Brazilian households use smartphones. Over 91% of users prefer WhatsApp – the application is installed in more than 200 million inhabitants of Brazil

At the same time Brazil is a huge number of members that maximize integrate services into everyday life (according to the WSJ Brazil can rightly be called “universal capital for social networks”). Iz-za fact that Brazilian mobile telecom operators are renowned for their prohibitively expensive service rates, instant messengers are used not only to communicate, with their help, for example, interact with physicians and patients, and the companies are in talks about supplies.

The law, which does not work

in 2014, Brazil adopted the so-called Internet constitution, which was designed to limit state intervention in the privacy of Internet users. In particular, the law established the item on the transfer of metadata social networks: Company may be required to disclose information about who, when and where the calling, but there is no information on the mandatory transfer of the contents of messages from the service

practice shows with WhatsApp, in this regard “Internet constitution” has demonstrated its inefficiency and regional judges continue to adjudicate on the lock, which are then challenged in the courts of appeal.

After a former employee of the NSA and the CIA Edward Snowden published information about the interaction of American social networks with the intelligence agencies, the Brazilian authorities have tried to include in the “Internet constitution” item on the mandatory retention of data on local users in the country, but they did not succeed.

A similar law was passed in Russia – the personal data of Russians who use foreign Internet companies are required to maintain the country

So, at the end of 2015, Roskomnadzor said that storage servers. Russian data on the territory of the country has moved Apple, Google and Viber and many others, but from Facebook and Twitter information on the transfer has been received.

in addition, as noted by many US lawyers, the disclosure of the content of messages, in any case contrary US law.

Privacy Policy electronic communications Act prohibits US companies to disclose user data to other countries without a warrant issued by a US court.

in this case, According to experts, to decrypt messages Brazilian judges may only apply to the US courts in the framework of legal assistance treaty, but disclosed to the encryption keys for the investigation of cases, they simply do not have the right.

currently, the parliament Brazil WhatsApp after repeated shutdowns began to discuss new initiatives, one of the bills proposes to allow any court to decide on the site blocking

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initiative Discussions are ongoing, but because of massive public protests lawmakers agreed to include a paragraph in which possible future restrictions will not affect services for the exchange of messages (including WhatsApp ).

Who benefits from the lock WhatsApp

Messenger, bought up by Zuckerberg, is the most popular among Brazilians. Thus while WhatsApp off in the country the owners of other services have seen a barrage of influx of new users.

In May Telegram reported that mobile operators in Brazil can not cope with the influx of SMS-messages that the service sends the user verification.

in December 2015 and in February and May 2016 (it was then that WhatsApp was blocked in Brazil) Pavel Durov Telegram messenger could increase by several million users. On the rival blocking won and Russian “ICQ” in February in WhatsApp Lock day Brazilian audience ICQ quadrupled – similar surge of active users in Brazil was observed only during the World Cup in 2014.

More. comfortable without feeling the popular messenger and Brazilian cellular operators: they also tried to force the authorities to restrict WhatsApp voice services over the Internet, but failed. Carriers referred to the fact that WhatsApp hinders the development of their own voice services.