Brazil and WhatsApp: Avoiding an Orkut Moment?
June 24, 2020
Brazil, land of pinga and Covid, is brandishing some Lança-perfumes with malice. “Brazil Suspends WhatsApp’s Payments Service” reports:
Brazil, the second largest market for WhatsApp, has suspended the instant messaging app’s mobile payments service in the country a week after its rollout in what is the latest setback for Facebook. In a statement, Brazil’s central bank said it was taking the decision to “preserve an adequate competitive environment” in the mobile payments space and to ensure “functioning of a payment system that’s interchangeable, fast, secure, transparent, open and cheap.”
This is an interesting development. The banking system in Cariocaland is fascinating. Facebook’s confident leader assumed that WhatsApp was a slam dunk in a nation state where cash transactions take place near cathedrals located in central squares.
The issue, however, may be a lingering digital imprint from the long ago era of Orkut. Google’s failed social network (no, I don’t want to recount the story, gentle reader) was allegedly quite the go-to service for some elements of Brazilian society.
Law enforcement in Brazil is stretched. Orkut was an electronic accelerant for certain activities which the government had determined were detrimental to the country.
DarkCyber believes that usage of WhatsApp emulated some of the exploratory paths used to chop through the Orkut digital undergrowth.
The result? Yo, Facebook, stop.
Perhaps Facebook’s method of ignoring is meeting some resistance? Germany is taking Facebook to task. Plus there are some advertisers waving their checkbooks and saying, “No ads in July.”
What’s self aware mean for Facebook’s management?
One answer is, “You are all stupid.”
A new company motto. Facebook could make its own version of the Brazilian flag and replace “Ordem and Progresso” with “You are all stupid.” Interesting. “All.”
Stephen E Arnold, June 24, 2020
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