Brazil feuds with social media platforms to censor Brazilians

Brazil officials are attacking social media companies for their hesitancy in complying with the country’s aggressive crackdown on speech.

The Lula administration has launched a major censorship offensive following an April 5th attack on a nursery in Santa Catarina when a man massacred four children with an ax. The incident marks the ninth school attack in eight months.

Authorities have already arrested over 300 people — including minors — who have been accused of hate speech online or “stoking school violence” though the charges have not been detailed and investigations are under seal. Brazilian lawmakers will vote Tuesday on legislation that will make certain speech on social media illegal, though senior officials insist this will not hamper freedom of expression.

Minister of Justice and Public Security Senator Flávio Dino claims "the idea that regulating and monitoring the internet would be against freedom of expression is false." The Communist Party member added that censorship, in fact, is central to freedom of expression.

"It is only possible to preserve freedom of expression by regulating it," claimed Dino. "We already have, at this point, affirmed that criminal networks are strongly organized in this theme of violence against schools," added the communist politician.

The legislation that will be voted on Tuesday would force social media companies to remove users without notice for a host of reasons, which include posting content against “the Democratic rule of law”. Amended law PL 2.630 would require the removal of any user guilty of “dissemination or sharing of facts that are known to be untrue, or seriously out of context, that affect the integrity of the electoral process”.

Social media companies who do not comply with government orders and rid their platforms of fake accounts will face fines of R$100,000 ($20,053) to R$150,000 ($30,080) per hour, a R$50,000 ($10,026) increase from current fine limits. Furthermore, while current fines are only parameters and not legally mandatory, this amendment would stamp such fines into law.

An amendment which already passed a vote on Thursday says that social media companies are to be held liable for content boosted by their algorithms, such as advertisements and promotions.

But tech companies are pushing back on the bill. Meta executives presented several problems with the legislation that "would make it difficult for technology companies like ours to continue to offer the kind of free services used by millions of people and businesses in Brazil." The company slammed the censorship law as trying to implement a "permanent system of surveillance, similar to that of countries with anti-democratic regimes.”

Google Brazil’s Government Relations and Public Policies Director Marcelo Lacerda also criticized the bill as “vague” and that Google’s censorship mechanisms are adequate, reports Revista Oeste. School violence, he said, should not be on Google's head.

Brazilian officials are now accusing the tech giants of running ads critical to the proposed Fake News law. Google in particular is being accused of manipulating its algorithm to show search results that criticize the bill.

“It is curious to say the least to see foreign companies running aggressive advertising campaigns against the Fake News PL,” wrote Institutional Security Cabinet (GSI) Acting Minister Ricardo Cappelli on Twitter Monday. “Typical case of undue external interference in a matter of national interest conducted by the Brazilian parliament.”

While Facebook has been known to censor Right-leaning Brazilians, particularly those tied to former President Jair Bolsonaro, this is Cappelli's first objection to the company’s “external interference”.

Minister of Justice and Public Security Senator Flávio Dino also threatened Monday to involve the National Consumer Secretariat, an agency within the Justice Ministry tasked with consumer protection. Until the Fake News law is passed, Brazil’s Left-wing officials are using the National Consumer Secretariat to demand that certain content be removed from social media platforms for the good of Brazilian users, who are deemed “consumers”.

“I am forwarding the matter to the analysis of the National Consumer Secretariat, an agency of the Ministry of Justice, in view of the possibility of configuration of abusive practices by companies,” tweeted Dino in reply to a tweet by Sleeping Giants Brasil accusing Google and Twitter of meddling with the legislation.

Sleeping Giants is a group dedicated to pressuring companies to remove conservative advertising or cancel conservative news shows altogether.