Leader prohibits removing certain social media posts
President Jair Bolsonaro is temporarily banning social media companies from removing certain content, including his claims that the only way he’ll lose next year’s elections is if the vote is rigged — one of the most significant steps by a democratically elected leader to control what can be said on the internet.
The new social media rules, issued this week and effective immediately, appear to be the first time a national government has stopped internet companies from taking down content that violates their rules, according to internet law experts and officials at tech companies. And they come at a precarious moment for Brazil.
Bolsonaro has used social media as a megaphone to build his political movement and make it to the president’s office. Now, with polls showing he would lose the presidential elections if they were held today, he is using sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to try to undermine the legitimacy of the vote, following the playbook of his close ally, former President Donald Trump. On Tuesday, Bolsonaro repeated his claims about the election to thousands of supporters in two cities as part of nationwide demonstrations on Brazil’s Independence Day.
Under the new policy, tech companies can remove posts only if they involve certain topics outlined in the measure, such as nudity, drugs and violence, or if they encourage crime or violate copyrights. To take down others, they must get a court order. That suggests that, in Brazil, tech companies could easily remove a nude photo, but not lies about the coronavirus.
The pandemic has been a major topic of disinformation under Bolsonaro, with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all having removed videos from him that pushed unproven drugs as coronavirus cures.
“You can only imagine how hard it would be for a big platform to get a judicial order for every single piece of disinformation they find,” said Carlos Affonso Souza, a law professor at Rio de Janeiro State University.
In addition to limiting what sorts of posts companies can take down, the rules can also require tech companies to justify removal of any post or any account, even those involving the protected exceptions. The government can then force the companies to restore the post or account if it decides the removal was unwarranted.
Far-reaching though they are, the new rules probably will not last, according to political and legal analysts who track Brazil. Bolsonaro issued them as a so-called provisional measure, a type of emergency order intended to address urgent situations. Such measures expire in 120 days if Brazil’s Congress does not make them permanent. Some members of Congress have already publicly opposed the measure, and five political parties and a Brazilian senator have filed lawsuits with the nation’s Supreme Court seeking to block it.
But Bolsonaro told supporters at a rally on Tuesday that he would ignore rulings from one Supreme Court justice who has helped lead investigations into Bolsonaro’s administration, alarming observers around the world that the president is threatening Brazil’s democracy.