Yes. Yes you are. You are expected to follow all laws of where you have a presence or face the consequences they'll impose on you for it, which is exactly what is happening here.
I have a website that is accessible in Syria. Do I have a presence in Syria? In Antartica? In Trinidad? In Russia?
And if I, as a German, would host something that’s illegal in the US, it’d instantly get either blocked, or I’d even extradited to the US.
This quote from a German politician sounds silly at first, but makes sense.
If a company wishes to get access to a market, they have to follow their laws.
I can’t start a company and sell pirated DVDs to the US – even if that might be legal in China.
And the US can then stop importing my products, and demand I follow their laws, or be blocked.
For you, as a solo developer, it is very simple.
Either you only focus on your own market, the market you know, or you accept to abide the rules of every market where you operate. Most US startups limit their services to the US only anyway, as you need a US address, or a US credit card, or a .edu email, etc.
But an internet without rules, without laws, would be the worst possible result for the consumer.
If someone scams you in a transaction? No way to get money back. If snapchat sells your nudes, or even blackmails you? No way to prevent.
We need those laws.
It's worse than that - only American laws are applicable on the internet world-wide, and most of HN is fine with that without any second thought.
The US has never been shy applying its laws abroad, with numerous examples: domain name seizures with the tenuous nexus being "Domain Registrar is a US entity", prosecution of the Pirate Bay and Kim Dotcom, the TPP.
Brazil intends to take action that only applies within its borders and suddenly the sky is falling, all because it's against an American company.
Which I think is insane as well. My criticism is not limited to Brazil.
Companies should beholden to the laws of the places they reside. Not everywhere that has internet access.
My belief is slightly different: companies should be beholden to the laws of the places they trade (or do business, or earn income). I think it's both moral and pragmatic in a real politik way (he who pays the piper and all that). If a company thinks it can get away with ignoring the laws and at the same time benefiting from the same country, they shouldn't be surprised to find themselves cut off.
This is why US companies are bending over backwards to onerous demands by the Chinese gvt (and following Chinese laws) in order to gain access to the humongous Chinese market. Money talks, and the Brazilian judge 'hacked' the legal limitations: I consider this to be an extra-territorial contempt of court sanction. It is well within Whatsapp's legal rights to keep ignoring this, but it wouldn't be advisable with the 1m subscriber bonus to its competitor.
Blocking imports or sites is fine, if your countries laws allow you to do it. But calling them lawbreakers? Not so much.
We already have precedent with the US going crazy over persecuting people who reside outside of it, and that's something the US needs to stop doing, not something more countries need to start.
WhatsApp are not an "international company", they are a US company[1]. You can bet that if it was a US court that WhatsApp would comply.
Fundamentally, I think it's ludicrous to think you should international companies to the laws of your own country. Fundamentally, WhatsApp is not a lawbreaking company - they are not subject to Brazilian law. You can't break a rule that isn't actually imposed on you.
From a practical perspective, it doesn't matter for Brazilians. The end result is the same. Brazilian law allows for them to block the site, and that's the end of that.
But the reasoning behind it is important, and that people believe they have the right to subject people in different countries with different laws to their own local laws, despite those people not being in Brazil, is fundamentally scary to me.
Even if I believed in following all of these laws, I am now expected to know all of them?
WhatsApp has the backing of Facebook, so it's conceivable they have the resources to figure out the laws for every place their app is accessible from. But what about a small startup, or solo developer? How can you reasonably expect them to know every law in every internet accessible location?
That way lies madness.