Brazil vs WhatsApp: the problems involving the Civil Framework of the Internet and transnational virtual social networks

Since its beginning, the Internet had been targeted both as villain and ally to many different sectors of our society. From illegal downloads of songs to globalized multitask communication vehicles, the Worldwide Web has served to many causes and aims. However, the biggest enemy of the liberty offered by the Internet is the control of information flow by the governmental entities, since these informations, whether they are confidential or not, are indeed surfing the Web – moreover, nowadays, floating in the Cloud. So many organizations are trying daily to deal with the control and regulation of what can be shown or not in the Internet. For instance, you can think about the unremitting leak of many artists' work before its official release – the most iconic from recent years was the LP "Rebel Heart", by singer Madonna, which was leaked in the Internet months before its release, leading the record label to anticipate the official launching to some days after the incident (the responsible for the leak was arrested and convicted months after for his crime) – or the leak of important and confidential documents from various governments – the biggest one was the Wikileaks case, in which Edward Snowden, who used to work to the US government, leaked online tons of electronic data about their international war plans and State secrets about the conduction of the country (now Snowden, after being evicted from his homeland, is living hidden somewhere in Russia).

This theme is brought here for a simple yet distinguished reason: since last Monday (2), all Brazilian users of WhatsApp, a very broadcast mobile application and social network, were surprised by a judicial decision that blocked the usage of the app anywhere inside the national territory. The scariest thing about this case is that it's not the first time something like this happens. On February 2015, a jurist from Piauí state was responsible for the very first judicial action to block the app in Brazil, which led to a massive attack by not only its users but also the creators of the app, Brian Acton and Jan Koum, and the current owner of the enterprise, the former Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The jurist asked for the blockade after the enterprise didn't cooperate in an investigation about pedophilia by giving in confidential informations about the criminals – the justification of WhatsApp was that, as the app does not keep informations about their users, only a cryptographic resource data, they weren't able to give any information since they don't have any. After the denial, the jurist demanded the blockade in all national territory; however, his decision was overturned by a group of jurists from the same Brazilian state a couple of days after. On December 2015, another blockade was demanded – this time in total secrecy – for a period of 48 hours; the biggest consequence was a massive attack from authors and journalists from all parts of the country and the fast increase of users in Telegram, a similar message application that rivals WhatsApp.

The last lock request was issued by a jurist from Sergipe state, after the enterprise was again subpoenaed by the Brazilian authorities to help in an investigation – now, about a group of drug dealers that’s being chased by the Federal Police. While affirming that they don't have the required data by the Brazilian courts, WhatsApp was punished by the blockade of the application across the country for a period of 72 hours. Again, the public reaction was very close to a riot: the group Anonymous Brasil, responsible to many major actions against the government orchestrated by various hackers who invade the websites of the guilty companies and organizations to vandalize and spread their message against the decisions taken by the system, has broken into Sergipe's government website in response to the blockade; the theme was the most tweeted topic on last Monday (2), reaching the Trending Topics for many hours; and many other minor reactions.

As long as this article is being written, the same Court of Justice of Sergipe had overturned the jurist's decision and the app's regular functions are being properly restored. However, these legal actions should not become routine – not only the users are being injured, but also the company is heavily criticizing these actions and, if they become fed up of it, they might consider leaving Brazil. The main character of this legal issue is the approval of the Civil Framework of the Internet – a set of laws regulating the availability of content in the virtual environment, regardless of their nature and origin, in addition to establish a modus operandi for international organizations operating within the national territory, thus establishing the way that each of them should operate in the country and having free right to block or suspend the online services that are not functioning in accordance with the law, or that do not contribute to the continued proper functioning of the Brazilian Justice. By what is established in this set, any jurist who needs any help from these virtual applications or websites, like free access to confidential data from possible criminals, can demand their blockade if they are not willing to help in any way; however, as for WhatsApp, most of these companies do not retain complete informations and data from their users, since this would take too much memory and space, so they either have these data in encrypted form or have no data from previous activities from their users. So, even if the government demands legally these informations, the companies do not have them – they don't exist physically to be given to whoever wants to. These Brazilian jurists had not comprehended this, and faced the company's denial as a way to refuse helping the justice, consequentially being accessary to the investigated ones. Rather accepting the justification, they chose to damnify a whole nation of active Internet users in the name of an already lost game.

Each company has its own way of dealing with their business and, when they decide to turn into a transnational, their modus operandi must be respected, aside doing some concessions according to cultural issues. Because of this, Brazil is not allowed to demand from these companies to change their way of conducting their business to fit into our national laws - or we allow the franchises to continue running in the country the same way they work in all countries where they're present, or the companies will end up withdrawing the Brazilian market and damaging the local economy. The losses with the escape of companies as Facebook and WhatsApp would represent a huge breakdown in how Brazilians access the Internet and the globalization would probably evict Brazil from its continuous transition. With this disastrous political situation, the last thing we do need is learning how to live without WhatsApp and all social networks we get along with every day.