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
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."
