What happens with WhatsApp in Brazil and why it has been banned

Brazil and WhatsApp, and therefore also Facebook ( its owner), have had a difficult relationship for months. A tug of war that has resulted in constant service outages, leaving millions of Brazilians without the most widely used messaging application in that country and in the rest of the world world. The motives? Apparently a more than disastrous understanding between both parties in judicial issuesThe result? Lots of problems for the Brazilians and for Facebook, who now suffers the embargo of a good pinch of their incomein that country. A soap opera that we explain below.

WhatsApp vs Brazilian justice

In February 2015 we received the first news about the problems between WhatsApp and the Brazilian authorities At that time, a state judge Piauí issued an order against on February 11 WhatsApp, forcing his dismissal in Brazil for refusing to collaborate with judicial investigations that were underway. The case focused on a pedophile network who used the chats of WhatsApp to exchange content pedophiles. Due to the secrecy of the company and its policy of not storing messages and shared content on its servers , could not provide evidence. Something that the Brazilian court took as a refusal, ordering the communications companies to block their service Something that was not finally carried out cape.

Later, in December of the same year, a case became even more serious for WhatsApp On this occasion a judge ordered the blockade of the service after WhatsApp refused to offer conversations about a judicial investigation into the PCC, the most dangerous criminal organization in the country. With the same philosophy, the messaging application found it impossible to comply with this request, which led to the effective blocking of its service for 48 hours The order of another judge, which affirmed the measure as disproportionate for users across the country, returned WhatsApp to normalBut the story doesn't end here.

In May 2016, a new judicial investigation in the region of Segipe regarding a drug cartel returned to face power Brazilian judiciary and to WhatsAppAgain, the authorities requested data and specific information about the chats of the people investigated, while WhatsApp showed their impotence towards such a purpose due to the encryption of their communications. The end-to-end encryption makes it impossible for even countries or WhatsApp to spy on the chats. As a consequence, the judge ordered the precautionary closure of the service Of course, before completing 24 hours without service, another judge raised the order and WhatsApp was working again Meanwhile, the application Telegram continued to swell its ranks with Brazilian users who were beginning to get fed up with this situation.

Collateral Damage for Facebook

Although the problems center on WhatsApp, its owner, Facebook , has also suffered from these problems. Or rather, their own responsible And if not, tell the Commercial Vice President of Facebook in Latin America, Diego Dzodan , who was detained at an airport for almost 24 hours last March Finally, another judge ruled that it was aillegal coercion by the Brazilian authorities. The goal was still the same: pressure the company to make WhatsApp give up the information that it really did not have about different judicial investigations.

A new confrontation

Now a new case confronts them again. This is a judicial investigation in the state of Amazonas, where the federal prosecutor has ordered the seizure of more than 10 million euros to Facebook. A judge once again ordered WhatsApp to provide data on suspected criminals. Upon refusing, said judge ordered the payment of a fine to the messaging application for each day it was late in delivering said information. According to Reuters, the total frozen amount would be nothing more than the sum of all fines accumulated by WhatsAppsince court order was issued.

Meanwhile, the service suffers cuts, leaving Brazilians without application when the judge on duty orders the teleoperating companies to cease . Of course, a few hours later, another judge usually releases WhatsApp from such a ban. A situation that continues to happen practically every month.