The hugely popular WhatsApp smartphone messaging service was briefly
blocked by a Brazilian court on July 19 for the third time in less than a
year after failing to surrender user data to police.
The latest
drama ended after the Supreme Court president, Ricardo Lewandowski,
accepted an appeal against a lower court order that shut down the
service nearly four hours earlier.
“The
suspension of service apparently violates the fundamental precept of
freedom of expression and communication,” the Supreme Court said, adding
that Lewandowski found that the lower court judge’s decision seemed
“not very reasonable and not very proportional.”
WhatsApp gradually resumed normal service after the high court’s ruling.
This
had been the fourth court-ordered suspension of WhatsApp, which is
owned by social media giant Facebook, since February 2015 and the third
in the last 12 months.
The
long-running dispute pits Brazilian authorities’ insistence that they
need access to communications between alleged criminals against
Facebook’s argument that it is protecting privacy and freedom of
communication.
In the last incident, in May, the blockage lasted a day before being lifted on appeal.
The shutdowns have angered users reliant on the free app. Cell phone fees for texting and calls are high in Brazil and WhatsApp’s group chat and image-sharing functions have become embedded in everyday social interaction.
“We
hope that this puts an end to blocks that have punished millions of
Brazilians and that people can continue using services like WhatsApp to
stay in touch with those who matter to them,” the company said in a
statement.
Earlier,
lower court Judge Daniela Barbosa had ordered telecom companies to put
an immediate nationwide stop to WhatsApp services.
Barbosa
blasted Facebook as irresponsible for refusing “to provide information
that will be critical to the success of an investigation and later to
bolster the criminal case.”
It
was not clear what was involved in the criminal case, but Barbosa said
Facebook had been issued with three requests to provide messages to
police investigators in Duque de Caxias, north of Rio de Janeiro. The
19-page court ruling said Facebook must comply or face fines of 50,000
reais ($15,265) a day.
WhatsApp
was defiant, calling the order an “indiscriminate” threat to “people’s
ability to communicate, to run their businesses and to live their
lives.”
The company said it hoped “to see this block lifted as soon as possible.”
Billionaire Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the May shutdown “very scary in a democracy.”
But
in the latest ruling, Barbosa criticized Facebook’s attitude, saying
the company responded to Brazilian police with its own list of questions
demanding explanations, adding that these were made in English, as if Brazil were “some small republic.”
The
judge said those mourning the loss of WhatsApp “should remember that
the main victim of the crimes being investigated is society itself, with
the certainty that all the time, new victims are being created and new
crimes are being committed while the judiciary is unable to stop the
incidents or punish those responsible.”
WhatsApp
responded in its statement that it doesn’t comply in revealing the
encrypted communications because “we cannot share information we don’t
have access to.”
WhatsApp is estimated to be used by 100 million Brazilians, making Brazil the second biggest user country after South Africa, according to data cited by the court.