Brazil says Meta getting rid of factcheckers is ‘bad for democracy’
Brazil says Meta getting rid of factcheckers is ‘bad for democracy’
Brazilian officials also ask tech giant to clarify whether it intends to implement changes in country within 30 days
Summary
Brazil criticized Meta's decision to end factchecking in the U.S., with Communication Minister Sidonio Palmeira calling it harmful to democracy due to unchecked misinformation.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to replace factchecking with "community notes," sparking global concerns about misinformation.
Brazil's public prosecutor has demanded clarification within 30 days on whether these changes will extend to Brazil.
President Lula emphasized the dangers of disinformation and vowed to combat hate speech, recalling Brazil's strong stance on regulating social media, including past actions against Twitter/X for noncompliance.
I believe that is the point
Yeah, Meta is bad for democracy
Brazil actually held their coup actors accountable.
Hum... Not yet.
Up to now, just a bunch of mislead nobodies faced any consequence. And a guy that was actively blocking investigations. Nobody that really participated in it got any consequence by doing it.
The Brazilians know what they are talking about. It may be a good idea for the US to listen to some advice for a change.
Meta is a threat to democracy. It has too much power over communications and is almost entirely unregulated in that regard. The same applies to Xitter and Tiktok and could apply to any other social media that gets too big.
"Oh, it's user generated content, we just host it, we can't be held liable!" - True, but you also profit off it. You also don't properly act to contain bad actors and criminals (instagram is full of drug sellers and scammers) because they're profitable, they pay for ad space. They should, at the very least, be liable for any ads they host and require full info (KYC, know your client) on the person paying for that ad.
When Zuckerberg mentioned 'secret courts in South America that order content removal without publicly disclosing it,' everyone in Brazil immediately knew he was referring to our Supreme Court. The Court has been working in tandem with the federal administration to suppress laws approved by Congress, including a 2013 law that implemented a notice-and-takedown system similar to the DMCA. Under this system, internet content providers are only held responsible if they fail to remove content after receiving a specific court order.
The Supreme Court is now attempting to declare this notice-and-takedown system unconstitutional, while the federal government simply parrots the same fallacious arguments made by the judges. Every article I've read on this subject fails to identify which part of our Constitution the system supposedly violates, and I've personally searched for it without success. I suspect the Court is determined to stifle free speech in Brazil and will come up with an excuse for the law's unconstitutionality later—likely something vague, like 'violation of human dignity.' Supreme Court judges often use this phrase liberally in their televised oral arguments.
The federal government and the Supreme Court claim to be protecting democracy, yet they seem unconcerned with preserving one of its core tenets: the separation of powers."
The Supreme Court is now attempting to declare this notice-and-takedown system unconstitutional
This piece explains more or less how the debacle really isn't about whether it's unconstitutional, but a matter of convenience (so, yeah, a STF façade) - https://www.jota.info/artigos/marco-civil-da-internet-consideracoes-sobre-o-julgamento-da-constitucionalidade-do-art-19
It also explains that the constitution article being used is 5 XXXII, which is about consumer rights
Article 19, the piece being judged unconstitutional, is obviously not so. The problem, from my point of view, is that it needs to add more cases where the host/provider IS liable for content, especially any content which is advertised (that is, the platform gets money to make some content more visible it to more people). But that'd actually be good, and I know not to expect good things from my country, not even as side effect.
The funny thing is, that law was pushed by the same party that is now in power, and was spoken really well about by most of the judges criticizing it now.
Getting rid of meta is good for democracy. Mario where you at ?
