I lived in Argentina on and off for about ten years. Similar bullshit there. Government is a joke. Whoever is in power pulls the strings and makes shit up to favor, well, whoever is in power.
US citizens ought to study the political history of these countries to really understand why it is very, very important to keep your government as honest as possible (honest government == oxymoron) and working for you and your interests rather than their own.
Virtually nothing in a democratic system is as sacred as a vote. Observing a politician flat-out ignore voters and make-up his own result is down-right disgusting. It is beyond me why this did not generate a revolt at all levels. What was being voted on is of no consequence here. What is important is that you are seeing the true nature of some politicians: You, the people, don't really matter. It's about politicians for politicians. Sad.
BTW, It happens at all levels and ALL parties. We just don't get to see it. This just happens to be one example that is very public.
That video is from the DNC, not from the US government. The Democratic Party is free to structure itself however it chooses, especially with regards to agreeing (or, in this case, failing to agree) on party policy. The days of convention delegates actually voting on anything of substance are behind us -- conventions are just infomercials now.
It's also not a subject of government policy. They're voting (or not) on a party platform, which is literally nothing but a set of guidelines.
I'm not saying that the DNC fight wasn't "undemocratic" either -- just agreeing that holding this up as an example of "government corruption" is a huge stretch. They held a fake vote on a fake document; the most notable thing here is that they did it embarassingly in public.
It's an example of the mindset more than anything else. The fact that they (politicians --not being partisan here) are willing to do stuff like this.
We do have a perfect example of this at the congressional level: The healthcare law. Most senators did not read it. And it was rammed through by using parliamentary tricks (legal, of course) rather than votes. What's worst, nobody actually read the law ("We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what's in it"). And, of course, it was piled high with all sorts of pork.
The general idea is that politicians (all parties, all levels), as a class, will work hard to optimize their own benefits --be it political or financial. They seldom act with a sincere aim of benefiting the people or the country, and certainly not with any real long term thinking (despite statements to the contrary). The problem is that nobody has come up with a viable alternative that could fix some of these issues. We humans are a sorry-ass species.
That guy's not a politician, he's a glorified MC. He might as well have been asking what pizza toppings they wanted- there's no actual political decision in that video. The DNC is a private organization. This is not a governmental election. It's roughly comparable to the Miss America pageant, or American Idol.
If this was on the floor of the Senate or something there'd be massive protests.
"That guy" is also Antonio Villaraigosa, the present mayor of LA, and a reliable machine hack. (I should know, I voted for him.) It was no accident he was the one presiding over that particular proceeding, and not, say, Howard Dean. ;-)
oh, honestly I didn't re-watch the video, I misremembered it as a DNC official. In any case he's not acting in his capacity as a politician. It's too late for me to edit the grandparent, unfortunately.
I'm not disagreeing with you at all; I upvoted your comment because I think you are correct.
Antonio Villaraigosa was the chair of the convention, so I guess you could say he's a politician as well as convention MC and a party functionary to boot.
He's termed out of his job as LA mayor this year, so he's looking for a new position and doesn't want to turn the party leadership off.
Yeah, the problem is in the US judges can't be trusted to deliver injustice so the president takes that role upon himself.
He's a real go getter, everything from instructing jurors on the guilt and innocence of the defendants, to unilaterally ordering the execution of citizens.
The man and the law have finally been unified. Whatever his whim so shall the law be.
Unfortunately, Brazilian law attributes a higher value on someone's public image than it does on free speech. Hate speech is similarly suppressed and slander lawsuits are routinely used to silence criticism. If you blog about the bad service you got at some restaurant, you risk being sued. Not that long ago offenses against someone's honor have been used as mitigating factors in murders.
The bright side is that, if the lawsuit is considered without merit, the other part will have to cover at least part of your legal bills.
On the flip side (or rather, other side of the pond), in Portugal, they have the "livro de reclamações" (book of complaints) which a customer can request at any moment. One copy of the complaint stays with the establishment, another with the customer and the third, with the gov't agency that can hand out fines to the restaurant or what-have-you.
The candidate who asked for the video to be removed belongs to a party that supported the military regime.
But, if the judge had ordered it deleted, shouldn't Google have taken it down and then argued its case? I mean, would Google simply ignore a judge's order in the US?
"Government requests for content removal are high in Brazil relative to other countries partly because of the popularity of our social networking website, orkut."
In other words, the high number of takedown requests from Brazil is to a significant extent, an ARTIFACT of the predominance of Orkut in Brazil.
This is ironic. It's completely alien to me that there have been massive, widespread attacks on American embassies due to a youtube video. I keep wondering why they don't understand something that we learn as children: when you argue with an idiot, you become an idiot. When you engage the bully in the playground, you're giving them power.
So it's kind of funny that my home country is also censoring an independent video on youtube. Another example of the web causing a problem for current law.
The idea behind the law isn't bad: no personal attacks, equal airtime for every party. Unfortunately, it breaks down when faced with the reality of youtube.
It wasn't due to a Youtube video. That is a PSYOP. I mean, really, how can people fall for this stuff? Massive instant demonstrations in multiple countries in response to a lame 30 minute video on Youtube? Please. Don't believe the hype.
Wow, Brazil still has some way to go, eh? Saying that, I'm writing from the UK, a developed country that has attempted to raid another country's embassy to extract a political asylum seeker, most likely with the thought of eventually having him deported to the US, where he'd be murdered or
held indefinitely.
On the other hand, it shows the precarious nature of YouTube as a medium. They're not responsible for the content because... What? Google says so? Up until the recent times, we were used to channels taking at least some responsibility for the content they're carrying. Do the TV channels and newspapers not have to worry about privacy issues or about being libellous or slandering? Are the bookshops not
prevented from stocking illegal, potentially harmful books? It's very convenient and cost-saving for Google to say: "sorry guys, we know we earn $billions but it's all on user-generated content, so we have no control over it." Perhaps that situation will change in the future and Google will have to comply with local regulations, although that'd bring a host of other issues with it.
I largely see Google as a force for good. However, there's a thin line that could be crossed and could lead to the company imposing its own, sometimes US-centred views, on the local nations. "Do no evil" to America is not necessarily the same as do no evil as a human being.
Really feel sorry for the guy if he goes to jail even for a few hours. Google had this problem before in Italy and Turkey too IIRC. It ducks that a sales manager goes to jail for something entirely out of their control.
He will not even get near the jail.
Google has money. Here, in Brazil, thats enough for solving any problem with the justice.
Justice system here is a joke that just punishes poor people. There are _several_ cases of celebrities killing people while driving drunk at high speed, and _NONE_ of them ever got to prision.
Everything is just a veeeery sad joke....
"There are _several_ cases of celebrities killing people while driving drunk at high speed, and _NONE_ of them ever got to prision."
I don't know about Brazil, but in Argentina that would be the correct ruling according to the law. They probably didn't think they could actually kill someone. In the worst case, they thought it was possible, but too improvable. Plus they were drunk. So you may not like they laws, but these rulings alone do not necessarily imply corruption.
> They probably didn't think they could actually kill someone.
In Brazil that would be true in the case of a regular car accident, it would be regarded as having no intent to kill.
If you are drunk however, brazilian law understands that you had intention to kill, because you know well enough that drinking will impair your driving and most likely kill someone.
However, an officer's statement is not enough to prove that you are drunk, you have to agree to take the test, and if you don't, than you can just throw money at the case up to the point where the final ruling is so late to the fact that the penalty has expired.
Another day, another corrupt decision from the Brazilian Government. I don't know why people accept the rules imposed on them in the country. You can't say anything about anyone without potentially getting into legal trouble. Saying, "McDonald's Sucks" is cause enough in Brazil to get yourself in trouble.
A truly messed up country. So next time someone complains about the way their country is being run, tell them to read up on freedom in Brazil and they might appreciate their own countries a little more.
Please beware that is good practice to actually read an article before commenting.
"A judge has ordered the arrest of the president of Google's operating...". In just the second word, the article lets you know that it was someone in the judicial power making the decision and giving the order. Not the executive. And it is also very clear that the reason for the arrest was not the videos, but the decision from Google to commit a crime by not obeying a very specific order form a week before: hardly a base to conclude that it was a "corrupt decision".
So, not a corrupt decision, and not from the Brazilian Government.
The rest of your post is only a diatribe against Brazil, where you show your feelings but not a single fact, idea or reasoning. Come on man, this is not what HN should be for, and you are a valuable member of it; we both know you are way better than this comment. I guess passions sometimes are stronger than ourselves.
I did read the article before commenting. A judge is employed by the Government, it's his or her job to uphold the law, making decisions that aren't in the bests interests of an entity or themselves. The judge in this case is obviously upholding Brazils backwards law when it comes to censorship and free speech. Quite to the contrary, Brazil and the US have far from identical judicial systems.
If you have the money in Brazil you can get anyone into trouble who has offended you where-as in the US and other places it's not as easy because the US judicial system fortunately for you and others is not nearly as corrupt.
Yes, the Brazilian legal system is based on civil law and the US one is based on common law, they work differently for example.
This is not the first decision against Google in this election and will probably result in nothing for Google and their president and workers, I have a couple of friends working in Google Brazil and life is the same as before, there's no police in the door of their building harassing them, if everything else fails he could appeal to the Supreme Federal Court who judges matters of constitutional issues, including free speech and complication involving this basic right.
Brazil does not have free speech as in the US, the legislation is almost the same that exist in France and a couple of other European countries for example, you cannot open a website containing hate speech, hosting neo-nazi websites is illegal in Brazil, hosting terrorism related websites is illegal in Brazil, the list follows, I prefer this way although I see value in the American system.
Following HN for such a long time I saw a couple of comments about how the legal system in the US also sucks and how the legal system there is a mess, nothing different from, people here in São Paulo generally idolizes the American criminal law and how it's easy to put people in jail for long times or even applying capital punishment, which does not exist in Brazil, with a exception in military justice in times of war, and yet I saw more than one discussion of how this same system in the US sucks right here on HN some months ago.
There's a point in the last paragraph, why are you generalizing? Are you a expert in comparative international law? If not I do not see how your opinion matters or how your last paragraph is valid, I used to be a grad student in the US I got the impression that Americans are over litigious and that the justice system generally benefits the rich who can pay better lawyers, not much different from here in Brazil, but that is just pure personal experience, I'm not a lawyer, I am a statistician. Must I say then that the US judicial system is corrupt? I don't think so, personally I would love to live in a world where judges are not necessary but we know that this won't happen.
And by the way in Brazil a judge is employed by the state not by a government.
That is amazing. Why do even the simplest of nouns end up with divergent and easily confused definitions.
And I still mean the question I asked, but without snark now. Where is pitiburi? Brazil, somewhere else? Wikipedia doesn't list what countries have this form of the word or give any way for me to look up the etymology.
I know that there are many Brazilians who seize on any opportunity to point to Brazilian corruption, and corruption IS a big problem, but THIS is not an issue where Brazil is worse than many other countries.
Read on Brazil's history and you will understand why Brazil is what it is today. It's not for nothing and surely not news that Elite has always been in charge there.
This will not change easily when you have a constitution that was written to benefit the elite in the first place.
Huh? You think Brazil is going to have their Olympics revoked over a YouTube complaint by a Campo Grande politician? Campo Grande, by the way, is an extremely tiny city. This isn't Sao Paulo we're talking about here.
I am Brazilian, and I can confirm everything is well with Google and YouTube over here :) Brazil does not have the centralized capability to shutdown sites.
Having said that, the decision might not seem that crazy once you know more about the local electoral laws: Each party has a free quota of TV ad spots (it's actually good because it gives a voice to smaller parties), and because they are free they need to follow certain rules such as no personal attacks.
The electoral judge has the the power to arrest media bosses because historically media has a huge influence in Brazilian elections (for example, the owner of the major TV network actually elected a president several years ago).
Google is being treated in this case as any other mainstream media, and its president is being held accountable. Sounds a little crazy, but these were all protections put in place as a result of decades of dictatorship and disproportionate power enjoyed by the elites.
Below is an excerpt of someone's personal account of how (local) politics are down here. In the US, I'm pretty sure I could tune out politics come election time, but here it's impossible. The cars playing the election jingles drive by non-stop. I've seen traffic completely stop on main streets in various neighborhoods because some idiot hired a bunch of people to basically block traffic, wear shirts and carry signs supporting one politician or another. Their names, faces and voting number are plastered everywhere. There are places in the favelas where I hear the police only allow one kind of politician's signs to be displayed (because the police are often as corrupt as the politicians).
As for the equal amount of allotted airtime per politician, I know someone who was running for city council and she told me the allotted time is not equal, that it's dependent on several factors. In any event, politics here annoys me all the same.
_____
"It's 3PM and a car drives by the apartment complex. This isn’t an odd occurrence since I live near a main street. This particular car happens to have large speakers set up on its roof and it’s playing the kind of song that is attractive to young people. Without considering it, I start bobbing my head to the beat while at my desk...then comes the chorus. Strangely, it’s a five digit number that is on a loop.
What I’m experiencing, in actuality, is a local politician’s campaign strategy. Politicians in Brazil each get a number which they need to use to the best of their ability in order to get their constituents to vote for them. These numbers are repeated ad-infinitum as if the only purpose were to implant that number in people’s heads.
A few other strategies are also employed during election time, with only one of them allowing the politician ‘air-time’ to say what they stand for. Another phase of the “remember my name and number” plan of attack, is to hire anyone looking for some extra cash to stand in high traffic areas and hand out glossy leaflets with the politician’s face, name, number and political party on them. The idea, I suppose, is to hammer the message home. Whatever that message might be, I can’t quite tell."
In Australia our politicians seem no more sophisticated. While the leaders of the political parties dominate the media, come election time you only vote for a member in your local area, not the leader you've seen on TV. And at the Ballot Box, the only thing you see is the candidates full name and political party.
This has led to the same "get my name out there" campaign, where my entire suburb will be covered in Billboards of various candidates, each Billboard containing only their photo and their name. Half the time I can't even tell which party they are with, let alone what their policies are or why they deserve my vote. I can't imagine it's an effective use of the campaign budget.
The worst version of this is seeing a party which otherwise claims to be thoughtful about the environment and global warming etc hiring drivers to drive a convoy of cars with billboards on the trailers around the city - again, with nothing but a photo and a name. I sometimes wonder if politicians even consider what message their campaigns send the electorate...
I don't understand how a "free quota of tv ads" is at all related to "a quota on what everyone else in the world may post or upload to their websites about you".
It does make things a bit clearer when put in context, thanks. But these laws don't seem to scale too well on the web, the concept of intermediaries ought to be introduced.
Neither Google or Youtube are down now here, probably won't be too, since it would let it spill the amount of ridiculousness that happens around here in every field outwards.
Not long ago, another judge tried to blackout Facebook for 24hrs too, don't remember why...
> Not long ago, another judge tried to blackout Facebook for 24hrs too, don't remember why...
It was for similar reasons. Someone trash talked a politician on Facebook, the politician ordered it to be taken down, Facebook failed to comply and was ordered to blackout for 24 hours.
It's worth noting that Brazil is the number 1 country in number of takedown requests to Google. Almost all of them are because of politicians feeling offended.
"Brazil is the number 1 country in number of takedown requests to Google"
I had heard that too. It's not true. Of course, it's the US. And the US is ahead in the percent of requests complied with by Google (93%) which is the important thing.
Ah, but who is really to determine what is legitimate or illegitimate? My country, your country? The Google shareholders? The RIAA?
The fact is that Google complies with US requests at a far higher rate than any other country's. It's a US company, and users in Brasil or anywhere else had better not forget that, just as they should not forget that Microsoft and Apple are US companies.
As I never tire of saying, "there is no free lunch".
I think it was for that stupid video with that model Ronaldinho Fenomeno was dating, right? (can't recall her name at all, the one with the big mouth and the famous 6th toe, LOL)
