I got astonished today while listening to radio news. The Brazilian elections are coming up (oct 3) and the candidates are on a frenzy. Here in Brazil there is a state at the North region, called Amapá, where one of our former presidents came from. He's currently running for a place in the Senate.
Recently a woman (civilian, mortal civilian), journalist (I'll call her Maria in here), put a caricature of him in her blog, a photograph took from a wall. I don't know how, the candidate, named José Sarney, pleaded a 'response right' in the electoral court. Surprisingly, it was sustained by the judge. Maria got notified by the TRE (Tribunal Regional Eleitoral, or Regional Electoral Tribunal), and complied to remove the photo and the user comments from her blog. Hours later, the Content Provider, UOL (On-Line Universe, one of the biggest in Brazil), that hosted the blog, shut in down, without warnings or further explanations.
In the following day, Maria's sister, let's call her Gina in here, who also had a well-visited blog, wrote an article making references to this and built a list of ~100 other blogs of the same type, that talk about politicians and candidates. None of them were shut. Gina's blog was also shut down, not much after her sister's had been so.
Questions:
1 - What did you think about the TRE's decision to remove the post and the user comments from the blog?
2 - And about UOL, the host, that suddenly shut the entire blog down?
3 - What normally happens in your country (please specify yours, with state in case of US) if a candidate went to the judge to ask something like this?
4 - Is it a sign that the privacy and free speech in the internet is threatened?
Thanks for attention.
Recently a woman (civilian, mortal civilian), journalist (I'll call her Maria in here), put a caricature of him in her blog, a photograph took from a wall. I don't know how, the candidate, named José Sarney, pleaded a 'response right' in the electoral court. Surprisingly, it was sustained by the judge. Maria got notified by the TRE (Tribunal Regional Eleitoral, or Regional Electoral Tribunal), and complied to remove the photo and the user comments from her blog. Hours later, the Content Provider, UOL (On-Line Universe, one of the biggest in Brazil), that hosted the blog, shut in down, without warnings or further explanations.
In the following day, Maria's sister, let's call her Gina in here, who also had a well-visited blog, wrote an article making references to this and built a list of ~100 other blogs of the same type, that talk about politicians and candidates. None of them were shut. Gina's blog was also shut down, not much after her sister's had been so.
Questions:
1 - What did you think about the TRE's decision to remove the post and the user comments from the blog?
2 - And about UOL, the host, that suddenly shut the entire blog down?
3 - What normally happens in your country (please specify yours, with state in case of US) if a candidate went to the judge to ask something like this?
4 - Is it a sign that the privacy and free speech in the internet is threatened?
Thanks for attention.
