Read More: Turkey coup: 6K arrested for treason as govt turns to mob to reinstate death penaltyĪccording to FT, Turkish President Erdogan’s aides “turned to WhatsApp to keep in touch with each other as they sought to wrest back control of the situation.” Facebook has owned WhatsApp since 2014, and while the Turkish government blocked, or at least slowed traffic considerably to the social media platforms, it also used WhatsApp to internally communicate their actions. When a faction of the Turkish military attempted to overthrow the government, the regime reportedly blocked social media in the country including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. It is yet to be seen how long the ban will last and whether the Brazilian Government has a solid legal case. In the case of blocking WhatsApp in Brazil, it’s about the government wanting private information from its citizens by attempting to use the social media platform as a means to retrieve that specific data. As before, millions of people are cut off from friends, loved ones, customers, and colleagues today, simply because we are being asked for information we don’t have.”Īccording to The Verge, “WhatsApp’s lawyers have argued in court that the company does not have access to the requested data and is unable to comply with the request.” It’s shocking that less than two months after Brazilian people and lawmakers loudly rejected blocks of services like WhatsApp, history is repeating itself. “We’re working to get WhatsApp back online in Brazil. In a Facebook post, Koum made the following statement: The judge is reportedly ordering WhatsApp to pay $50,000 for every day the information is withheld - which according to the social media platform’s CEO, Jan Koum - the company doesn’t even have access to. ![]() Just a few weeks ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, a Brazilian judge has succeeded in blocking WhatsApp in the country because the platform wouldn’t turn over information that was sensitive to an ongoing criminal investigation. Read More: Turkey coup: to control social media is to influence the outcome Blocking WhatsApp in Brazil It is a double-edged sword which, in the case in Brazil, the government wants access to private information on its citizens while in Zimbabwe and Turkey, the governments want to suppress information coming from its citizens. Blocking WhatsApp in Brazil following a court order while both Turkey and Zimbabwe did so in the name of national security lends credence that it is really all about the control of information.Ĭitizens of any nation cannot make informed decisions without being privy to certain information that is routinely kept hidden by their respected governments.
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