(Brasilia) The Supreme Court of Brazil began on Wednesday to discuss the regulation of social networks, an unprecedented debate at this level in Latin America on the role of platforms in the face of disinformation.
Posted at 2:23 p.m.
Concretely, the highest court in the country must decide on four specific cases raising the question of the responsibility of platforms for the content published there.
The opening of the debates takes place the day after the publication of a police report on the alleged involvement of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro in a planned coup d’état to remain in power after the 2022 election.
According to investigators, this plan consisted, among other things, of disseminating false information on the reliability of electronic ballot boxes to justify a putsch which ultimately did not take place, after Mr. Bolsonaro’s defeat against current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
One of the issues in the debates at the Supreme Court, which should extend over several sessions until next year, is to decide whether platforms can be sanctioned for illegal publications by certain users.
The Supreme Court’s decision on these cases will set a precedent, hence the importance of the debates.
“The platforms […] have opened avenues for disinformation, hate speech, lies and conspiracy theories,” Luis Roberto Barroso, president of the Brazilian Supreme Court, told AFP.
“The entire democratic world has launched debates to protect freedom of expression without allowing the world to fall into an abyss of incivility,” he added, citing as an example European regulation “which seeks this point of ‘ideal balance’.
The Brazilian Supreme Court was recently faced with challenges from social networks: one of its judges, Alexandre de Moraes, ordered the blocking of access to the X platform, for having ignored a series of judicial decisions linked to the fight against disinformation.
The old Twitter was blocked for 40 days in Brazil and its owner, billionaire Elon Musk, called Judge Moraes a “dictator” threatening freedom of expression.
