In another example of controversy and law and social media clashing, the 1st Criminal Court of São Bernardo do Campo located in São Paulo, Brazil, decided yesterday to shutdown WhatsApp’s services in all of Brazil.

This ban will last for 48 hours and has already affected the market standing of Whatsapp against its biggest competitor there, Telegram.

In the first three hours since the shutdown went into effect, 500,000 new Brazilian users signed up for Telegram. After four hours of shutdown in total, the number had swelled to 1,000,000. And soon after jumped to 1,500,000.

Telegram was very pleased by the upheaval and determined to make the best of it.

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook (which owns WhatsApp) and WhatsApp founder Jan Koum were not so pleased. The latter posted the following on Facebook, and Zuckerberg liked the post:

We are disappointed in the short-sighted decision to cut off access to WhatsApp, a communication tool that so many Brazilians have come to depend on, and sad to see Brazil isolate itself from the rest of the world.

However, the WhatsApp court ordered 48 hour service shutdown isn’t something that came out of the blue. A judicial court order was issued on the 23rd of July, that WhatsApp did not comply with. They received another notification of the order on the 7th of August, when they had still not complied, and were also issued a fine.

Then, yesterday, Judge Sandra Regina Nostre Marques took note that WhatsApp is still not complying so, within the boundaries of the powers she wields under Brazilian law and according to its Internet legislation, ordered the shutdown.

All of the Brazilian phone companies were instructed to block WhatsApp’s texting and Voice Over IP (VOIP) services.

SindiTelebrasil is one of these and has obeyed the order with stringency and zeal.

It comes as no surprise, considering that Brazilian phone companies have kept trying to control companies like WhatsApp and Telegram.

They claim VOIP services are similar to those offered by them and are in fact competition that undermines them.

As such, Brazilian phone companies claim that companies like WhatsApp should be considered telecommunications companies and subjected to Brazilian law, just like SindiTelebrasil and others are.

The staggering fact is that a report shows 93% of the 110,000,000 people using the internet in Brazil used WhatsApp prior to the shutdown.

That’s why there is an economic battle on top of the legal battle, with competitors like Telegram and the Brazilian phone companies respectively, trying to get in on WhatsApp’s action.

Still, the legal battle remains at the core. The Brazilian Network Band News TV claims that the court’s insistence towards the shutdown stems from an investigation focusing on a drug trafficker linked to one of the biggest and most dangerous criminal gangs in São Paulo who used WhatsApp in his dealings.

Image source: 1.