A The decision, taken by STF judge Alexandre de Moraes, established a period of five days for the police to hear the presidents of these companies in the South American country so that they could clarify the reasons for having allegedly authorized the use of mechanisms “that can, in theory, constitute abuse of economic power” to try to prevent the approval of the bill under discussion in the country’s Congress for three years.
Among the suspicious behaviors cited are content against the project and an alleged manipulation of algorithms that would have limited the reach of content by supporters of the new law being debated in the country’s lower house, which intends to impose some rules on technological giants (‘big techs’). .
Among the actions that drew the most attention is a kind of editorial published on Google’s official blog in Brazil criticizing bill 2630, known as PL das “Fake News”.
“Such conduct could configure, in theory, not only abuse of economic power on the eve of the vote on the bill by trying to illegally and immorally impact public opinion and the vote of parliamentarians, but also flagrant inducement and instigation to the maintenance of various criminal conduct practiced by digital militias,” said Moraes.
The judge cited the controversial insertion in the Brazilian version of Google, since the weekend, of a ‘link’ to an article entitled “The PL (bill) of ‘fake news’ may increase confusion about what is true or false in Brazil”.
This ‘link’ was removed today after the National Consumer Secretariat of Brazil announced that it determined that the company should signal as advertising the content produced and broadcast with criticism of the bill, providing for a fine if it does not comply with the decision.
The STF judge ordered the companies Google, Meta, Spotify, Brasil Paralelo to proceed with the complete removal, within a maximum of one hour, of all ads and texts published, propagated and boosted.
A survey by NetLab, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, released by the local media, indicated that these companies would be privileging information with content contrary to the “fake news” bill.
In addition, ‘Brazilian youtubers’ reported that they have been receiving since Friday (28) emails from YouTube stating that they will lose money if the project is approved. The messages claim that the “fake news” bill undermines “the revenue sharing model.”
The project under debate in the Brazilian Congress has as its main points to establish an obligation for providers to have official representation in Brazil, criminalizes the dissemination of false content through automated accounts, holds providers accountable for third-party content whose distribution has been driven by payment.
The project also determines that digital platforms maintain transparent rules of moderation, the immediate removal of content that violates the rights of children and adolescents and establishes payment for journalistic content used, among other measures.
There is still no final agreement, but the “fake news” bill may be voted on today in the Chamber of Deputies. If approved, the project will be forwarded to the Senate where it has already been processed, but as there were changes in the text, it will need a new vote and approval in the upper house.
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