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Brazilian Judge Lifts Suspension of WhatsApp
RIO DE JANEIRO — A judge lifted the nationwide suspension of WhatsApp in Brazil on Tuesday, allowing the popular messaging service owned by Facebook to get up and running again.
The ruling, from Judge Ricardo Múcio Santana de Abreu Lima, overturned a lower court order that had led to WhatsApp being blocked on Monday afternoon. The suspension was supposed to last 72 hours.
Judge Múcio is one of 13 judges on the higher court in the northeastern state of Sergipe, where WhatsApp has become embroiled in an organized crime and drug trafficking case. Authorities are seeking information for the case from the messaging service, but WhatsApp has not complied with requests for data, leading to the court order on Monday.
The restoration of service is not a full-blown victory for WhatsApp. Judge Múcio’s ruling was on process rather than the merits of the original case, a court spokesman said. The court provided no additional information on the reasons for revoking the WhatsApp suspension.
WhatsApp’s chief executive, Jan Koum, said the service continued to protect its users’ privacy. “We have no intention of compromising people’s security and we hope those impacted by this decision join us in making their voices heard in support of an open and secure Internet,” Mr. Koum wrote in a Facebook post.
WhatsApp has faced other legal difficulties in Brazil because of the case in Sergipe. The same case led to the March arrest of a Facebook executive, Diego Dzodan. Mr. Dzodan was released after one night in custody.
Many Brazilians posted on the Facebook page of Judge Marcel Maia Montalvão, who had ordered WhatsApp’s suspension, to express their frustration about the service’s brief shutdown.
One wrote, “Don’t joke around with these kinds of things Senhor Judge,” while another wrote that the judge was “the type of person who thinks that WhatsApp is only for chitchat and does not understand how much this affects small businesses, universities and self-employed workers.”
Internet privacy experts said they were concerned about the precedent that lower court judges like Judge Montalvão were setting with their shutdowns of a messaging service, especially as Brazil’s Congress may soon pass laws that would weaken digital privacy.
“I am concerned that more of these orders may be issued,” said Javier Pallero, a lawyer and policy analyst with the New York-based digital privacy group Access Now.
Brazil’s Internet bill of rightsdoes not allow the blocking or suspension of entire sites, services or apps in the infrastructure layer of the Internet, said Ronaldo Lemos, an author of the legislation and head of the Institute of Technology and Society in Rio de Janeiro.
Mike Isaac contributed reporting from San Francisco.
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