Facebook’s Vice President arrested in Brazil for refusing to share Whatsapp data

by Andrew Neiman · Published 1 March, 2016 · Updated 2 March, 2016

A few weeks ago we knew that, due to a court order, WhatsApp would be blocked in Brazil for a period of 48 hours. Note that finally, the blocking lasted just 8-10 hrs. since another order came up and ordered to reopen the service. There were many speculations about why these measures and it seems that now, the facts are being clarified. It was said that could be due to strong pressure from the Telco lobby, arguing that WhatsApp was giving VoIP service, therefore unfair competition to telcos… but not, it’s something related to information about drugs.

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Diego Dzodan, Facebook Latinoamerica Vice President arrested in Brazil.

The famous tech site Techcrunch reported that Brazilian security forces arrested the Facebook LatAm VP in Latin America due to a court order related to WhatsApp. It seems that the blocking was due to an ongoing investigation involving WhatsApp with an investigation of drug trafficking, as we said before. The problem is that Facebook says it cannot provide information that it simply does not have.

A Facebook spokesperson highlighted the disproportionate response, echoing Facebook’s response to the December ban.

We’re disappointed with the extreme and disproportionate measure of having a Facebook executive escorted to a police station in connection with a case involving WhatsApp, which operates separately from Facebook,” a company member said. “Facebook has always been and will be available to address any questions Brazilian authorities may have.

At the moment, these are the most relevant details of the ongoing investigation, since it is not known much more. We are sure that this issue will generate controversy as it reopens the famous debate between privacy and freedom.