Brazil blocks WhatsApp for 48 hours by court order
A court order requires the blocking of the app messaging WhatsApp for 48 hours by the Internet operators in the country The reason for this The blockade has not yet come to light (update at the end of the article), and it could be a judicial investigation or a case of espionage , as reported by some Brazilian web pages.Now we only have to wait for the legal reaction of WhatsApp and Facebook to try to lift this order and return the service to millions of users.
The war of Brazilian telecommunications companies has been going on for a long time in Brazil , and it is that for months they have been fighting to avoid the drop in income that means that the users of their lines decide to use Internet communication services to the detriment of regular phone calls and messages SMS Something that they have defended before the country's judicial bodies, hiding behind the fact that companies like WhatsApp do not pay any kind oftax or fee for the use of these services on their own networks while these companies must pay taxes for their operation and the provision of telephone services.Even so, this occasion could be different, with other reasons that justify the temporary closure of this application, such as a judicial investigation or theretaliation by this country for not getting WhatsApp to provide data about its users, as claimed by some Brazilian media A somewhat radical measure but with precedents in Brazil.
The blockade has already been in effect for a few hours, and reactions have not taken long to appear on the Internet. Thus, when 93 percent of the population with Internet access in Brazil has been left without its most used messaging service, a couple of million of these people have decided to make the leap to Telegram, the secure messaging application that seems destined to collect users who leave WhatsApp always as a second option.Thus, his profile on the social network Twitter has had to come to the fore by informing that, due to the growing number of new users, which number is more than 1,500,000 (and counting), messages with activation code are becoming saturated and sending more slower than usual.
Precisely on Twitter criticism from users has also been seen when they have seen that their messages WhatsApp were not going in and out of their chats. Complaints that have led the topic WhatsApp to be a Trending Topic with all kinds of complaints, jokes and requests.
Since WhatsApp they have not sat idly by before this measure either. Thus, its top manager and creator, Jan Koum, has published a small message through his Facebook in which regrets the short-sighted decision of the Brazilian justice to cut off the courier service“A communication tool that many Brazilians depend on”, adds Koum, and for whose decision to block they feel sad to see this population isolated from the rest of the worldAnd it is that Brazil is a majority of the number of active users of WhatsApp
Now we just have to wait for the reactions of the WhatsApp and Facebook legal team to see if they can get their calls through the Internet and their courier service is once again considered legal in Brazil. Will other companies around the world take advantage of this event?
Update:
After submission of a resource, and after 11 hours offline , a judge once again authorizes the normal operation of WhatsApp in Brazil This new resolution has already been communicated to the operators, who should return the service to the millions of Brazilians affected by the cut.Apparently, the decision of the temporary blockade has to do with a possible judicial investigation, and not necessarily with the movement of mobile operators to use their connections without paying money for it as we mentioned in this news (problem they already faced a few months ago) . There are also rumors about a possible case of espionage or theft of information Even so, the reasons for this temporary closure have not yet been made public, so there will be What to expect to learn more about this case.
Update II:
According to Reuters, the lifting of the veto imposed on WhatsApp It comes from the hand of Judge Xavier de Souza, a different magistrate than the one who imposed the blockade. Furthermore, it confirms that the blockade decision in Brazil comes as punishment by the judicial authorities of the countryabout the application refusing to submit information from conversations related to a criminal caseIn this way, WhatsApp would have refused up to two times to share the messages of a drug trafficker related to the PCC , the most dangerous criminal organization in this country. However, de Souza affirms that, due to «constitutional principles, it is not fair that millions of users must pay for the decisions of the company» behind the messaging app. Reason why it has decided to withdraw the prohibition and return the service to its operation throughout the territory.
