hurriyetdailynews : WhatsApp briefly blocked yet again in Brazil

WhatsApp briefly blocked yet again in Brazil

AMERICAS > WhatsApp briefly blocked yet again in BrazilActivists supporting the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff take part in a protest in an area separated by a fence from the Congress, in Brasília, on April 15, 2016.AFP photoThe 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.

Brazil judge briefly blocks WhatsApp over criminal case

SAO PAULO A Brazilian judge briefly blocked Facebook Inc's WhatsApp messaging service on Tuesday for failing to cooperate in a criminal investigation, before the nation's top court overturned the measure in the third such incident since December.Federal Supreme Court President Ricardo Lewandowski said in a decision that it seemed "scarcely reasonable or proportional" for a judge in Rio de Janeiro state to have ordered the indefinite suspension of the messaging app until it revealed encrypted messages pertaining to a confidential case.Still, the criminal judge left some 100 million Brazilian users without access to the messaging app for hours on Tuesday afternoon, showing the vast and unpredictable discretionary power of Brazil's lower courts.