Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has signed a decree to prevent social media platforms from arbitrarily removing accounts, profiles, and content. The decree makes changes to Brazil’s national legislation on the usage of the internet. Social media platforms must now follow a series of procedures before removing content or users that violate their terms of use. Critics say this measure could hinder the fight against disinformation and hate speech.
Alteration of Brazil’s Internet Constitution
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has signed a provisional measure that will limit the moderation powers of social media platforms, who must now follow new procedures before removing users or content from their platform. The provisional measure changes the Marco Civil da Internet (MCI), Brazil’s Internet Constitution. The decree is an urgent use tool and goes into effect immediately for a period of sixty days. However, it must be ratified by the National Congress to become law. Brazil’s Special Secretariat for Social Communication said that the measure aims to ensure freedom of expression and to introduce more clarity on “policies, procedures, measures, and instruments to ban, suspend, and delete content and accounts.” The platforms will have 30 days to comply with the new procedures. Failure to do so could result in sanctions, ranging from a penalty of 10% of the company’s income in Brazil to a temporary suspension of activities.
What are the New Procedures?
Prior to taking any action towards removing content or users, social media platforms must follow these steps: Platforms can only exclude posts, completely or partially, if there is “just cause” to do so.
Bolsonaro’s History With Social Media Moderation
President Bolsonaro is an avid user of social media platforms and used Twitter and WhatsApp extensively during his election campaign. As platforms have acted to remove false information on the COVID-19 pandemic, he has found himself on the wrong side of their content moderation policies. For example, Youtube and Instagram have deleted videos where he publicizes the use of ineffective treatments such as chloroquine. Additionally, Twitter removed his Tweets involving large crowds and criticism of social distancing. Following this, the President criticized the platforms and vowed to address the threats to freedom of expression. Alessandro Molon, an opposition politician, claims that the objective of the decree is very different. He stated, “its objective is not to protect freedom of expression, the MCI already does that.” He added, “What Bolsonaro wants is to prevent the disinformation and hate speech that he and his supporters disseminate from continuing to be removed from the platforms.”
