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In the era when not a single person can think of living apart from his/her gadgets and the inbuilt social media services, the decision of the Brazilian court to ban Whatsapp service has come as a shock not only to the civilians and the common masses of the country but to the entire world.
As per reports a court in the country ordered access to the messaging service blocked for 48 hours, that is due to start at midnight on Thursday, local time. The initiation of this blockage on the service was done by a judge in the city of Sao Paulo, and when he was asked to comment, he told the Brazil's telecoms companies to stop using country's most popular messaging app, however he did not divulge the name of the company or individual responsible for the injunction.
It is no hidden fact that Brazilian telecom companies have tried to combat the stratospheric growth of WhatsApp in the country some time before too, and fought with the government on the base that the messaging app's free calling option is unregulated and illegal. The telecom companies also blamed the service for a marked decrease in people picking up cell phone contracts. Earlier this year, President of Brazilian telecoms firm Vivo, Amos Genish, also called WhatsApp "pure piracy," and claimed that the service used phone numbers that belonged to cell phone providers like his. The Brazilian companies have been trying hard to regulate WhatsApp but until date they have been unsuccessful in their quest, but this shutting down of WhatsApp service is like a rising sun in the midst of clouds and it is seen as the beginning of a major change of approach from the Government's side.
Last year in 2014 Brazil became the champion of net neutrality by passing a landmark internet "Bill of Rights" that kept the online activities of its citizens under check, and it also made grounds to separate itself from the American internet after the famous NSA spying scandal. But Brazil's Congress, is now planning to roll back the internet Bill of Rights, replacing it with a bunch of other meaningless laws that would ensure that Brazilian citizens enter their tax identification, address, and phone number if they wish to access websites and apps. The report also states that the proposed laws would let the Brazilian government censor social media, giving politicians the right to issue an order to get the content removed from all the major social services, namely Facebook, Twitter, etc. which if probed further can also allow them to identify who posted it in the first place.
This one bill is just a demo as there are many in the pipeline: one bill if passed, would make taking pictures of unknown objects and posting it online a crime punishable for six years in jail. The 48-hour ban on WhatsApp has already proved beneficial for its competitors as Telegram (another messaging service) has gained 1 million new Brazilian users in a single day which is constantly on the rise with every passing moment.
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