A new chapter on the dispute between Brazil and WhatsApp is written these days, but now has been involved a new actor, such as Facebook. According to Reuters, a court in the South American country has blocked USD$ 6.07 million in funding from the social network, since who have ignored orders to deliver messages in relation to an investigation into drug trafficking from the chat service.
The local federal police said defied orders deliver talks of alleged members of an international network of illegal distribution of cocaine, which has been followed since 2016 this January. These data are essential to prove the links between these suspects and other detainees, in an illicit commercial operation also involving Nations like Bolivia, Paraguay and Spain.
After not responding to requests, a judge in the State of Paraná froze the funds of Facebook, owner of the bank accounts of WhatsApp to corresponding to the fines accumulated by the irreverence to the authority.
The “positive” in this situation is that the Court did not use the authority to close the Messenger service, which is permissible in the event that the court orders are not met. A similar episode was experienced earlier this year in Brazil and left more than 100 million users without being able to use the application.
The problem with this situation is that, as much as I would like, WhatsApp cannot store messages from their customers, since they are encrypted, so it escapes them and Facebook will.
