A new regulation from the Supreme Court holds Meta, X, and other online platforms accountable for content and user safety, setting Brazil on a collision course with the Trump administration.

On Thursday, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that digital platforms are responsible for users’ content — a major shift in a country where millions rely on apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and YouTube every day.

The ruling, which goes into effect within weeks, mandates tech giants including Google, X, and Meta to monitor and remove content involving hate speech, racism, and incitement to violence. If the companies can show they took steps to remove such content expeditiously, they will not be held liable, the justices said.

Brazil has long clashed with Big Tech platforms. In 2017, then-congresswoman Maria do Rosário sued Google over YouTube videos that wrongly accused her of defending crimes. Google didn’t remove the clips right away, kicking off a legal debate over whether companies should only be punished if they ignore a judge.

In 2023, following violent protests largely organized online by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, authorities began pushing harder to stop what they saw as dangerous behavior spreading through social networks.

  • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
    7·
    5 hours ago

    For context:

    There’s an older law called Marco Civil da Internet (roughly “internet civil framework”), from 2014. The Article 19 of that law boils down to “if a third party posts content that violates the law in an internet service, the service provider isn’t legally responsible, unless there’s a specific judicial order telling it to remove it.”

    So. The new law gets rid of that article, claiming it’s unconstitutional. In effect, this means service providers (mostly social media) need to proactively remove illegal content, even without judicial order.

    I kind of like the direction this is going, but it raises three concerns:

    1. False positives becoming more common.
    2. The burden will be considerably bigger for smaller platforms than bigger ones.
    3. It gives the STF yet another tool for vendetta. The judiciary is already a bit too strong in comparison with the other two powers, and this decision only feeds the beast further.

    On a lighter side, regardless of #2, I predict a lower impact in the Fediverse than in centralised social media.

    • ranandtoldthat@beehaw.orgEnglish
      7·
      5 hours ago

      When something similar happened in the UK, it was pretty much exclusively smaller/niche forums, run by volunteers and donations, that went offline.

      • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
        2·
        2 hours ago

        When something similar happened in the UK, it was pretty much exclusively smaller/niche forums, run by volunteers and donations, that went offline.

        [Warning, IANAL] I am really not sure if the experience is transposable for two reasons:

        1. UK follows Saxon tribal law, while Brazil follows Roman civil law. I am not sure but I believe the former requires both sides to dig up precedents, and that puts a heavier burden on the smaller side of a legal litigation. While in the later, if you show “ackshyually in that older case the defendant was deemed guilty”, all the judge will say is “so? What is written is what matters; if the defendant violated the law or not.”.
        2. The Americas in general are notorious for sloppy law enforcement. Specially Brazil. Doubly so when both parties are random nobodies.

        So there’s still a huge room for smaller forums to survive, or even thrive. It all depends on how the STF enforces it. For example it might take into account that a team of volunteers has less liability because their ability to remove random junk from the internet is lower than some megacorpo from the middle of nowhere.

        Additionally, it might be possible the legislative screeches at the judiciary, and releases some additional law that does practically the same as that article 19, except it doesn’t leave room for the judiciary to claim it’s unconstitutional. Because, like, as I said the judiciary is a bit too powerful, but the other powers still can fight back, specially the legislative.

        • Skavau@piefed.socialEnglish
          2·
          17 minutes ago

          No. It was also down to holding them potentially viable for what their users post.

          A forum about hamsters shut down.

  • scintilla@beehaw.org
    12·
    6 hours ago

    I’m unsure how I feel about this. I think whether this is beneficial or a net negative will end up depending entirely on how it is enforced.

      • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
        17·
        6 hours ago

        It will make it extremely risky from a liability standpoint to operate any platform that allows user content.

        The EFF has a bunch of writeups on these types of laws. This is the last of a 4-part series on them: Link

        Fediverse operators would for example be extremely vulnerable to lawsuits, because almost none of them can afford teams of lawyers to deal with claims, true or not, that they failed to enforce content policies.

        Depending on how the laws are written, anyone who could find a piece of objectionable content (which will vary by jurisdiction) could sue the platforms. This makes it very appealing as a route to shut down platforms you dislike, especially if they’re niche.

        It consolidates power under large corporations like Meta and Xitter, who can afford to handle legal threats.

      • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
        4·
        4 hours ago

        Consider a Brazilian Lemmy instance. They will have to remove everything anyone complains about.

        There’s no way to tell legitimate requests from illegitimate and as soon as volunteer admins are overwhelmed with requests, they will have to automatically delete any post that they are notified about.

        All the power is on the side of the complainant. Nonprofit Lemmy hosts would go bankrupt in minutes trying to fight it.