Media create disinformation to help Brazil’s censorship efforts

Mainstream media Monday created disinformation involving Twitter to help Brazil’s Lula administration in pursuing highly aggressive censorship efforts.

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 have been pushing legislation that will make certain speech on social media illegal, though senior officials insist this will not hamper freedom of expression.

The legislation 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 — or the “Fake News Law” — 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 last week says that social media companies are to be held liable for content boosted by their algorithms, such as advertisements and promotions.

Tech corporations have pushed back on the legislation, which includes Google adding a line beneath its search box reading, “The Fake News PL can make your internet worse” which linked to articles criticizing the legislation.

This further angered senior Brazilian officials, who are now pursuing legal action against Google and Meta through the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE), which has opened an investigation into the tech companies.

But while Twitter did not take a political stance, it is nevertheless being pulled into the fray by mainstream media outlets.

CNN Brasil presenter Daniela Lima claimed on air Monday that Twitter was censoring her when she couldn’t post content in favor of the Fake News Law. But Lima was one among thousands of other users who were victims of a technical outage at Twitter.

"This is ridiculous," Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted in response to Lima’s claim. "Twitter briefly encountered growing pains, which affected users worldwide. Too many people logging on simultaneously. We allocated more server capacity to authentication servers & problem solved."

Nevertheless, Brazil’s Minister of Justice and Public Security Senator Flávio Dino retweeted Lima’s claim on Twitter. If her claim were true, it would be a boon for the regime’s feud against social media companies, showing that the platforms already engage in censorship.

American-Brazilian journalist Glenn Greenwald called out Lima and CNN for their hypocrisy about “disinformation”.

"The hugest irony of all is the bill the entire corporate media in Brazil is supporting would, among other things, empower the state to censor the internet to stop ‘disinformation.’ Yet here they are spreading glaring Fake News in support of this law with no sense of irony." 

"This will backfire,” Musk replied.

Users kept fact-checking Lima’s claim until Twitter’s algorithm eventually added misinformation warnings to Lima’s and Flavio’s tweets. As of this report, however, Lima has not removed her post claiming she was censored by Twitter. The presenter even dug in her heels, insisting to Musk that her post was suppressed. 

“She continues her matyrdom [sic],” Greenwald wrote to Musk. “She will go to her grave believing that you were so obsessed with what she was saying on CNNBrasil about a law you didn't know about until I told you about it an hour ago. She's been fact-checked all day but doesn't care.”

The Fake News Law, meantime, has not made it to a vote. Without enough votes for approval, Brazil’s legislators have simply removed it from Tuesday’s schedule.