Bill of Fake News: Agency withdrawal causes uncertainty – 04/28/2023 – Power

Deputy Orlando Silva’s (PC do B-SP) decision to remove the creation of an autonomous entity from the Fake News PL report to oversee the platforms reopened negotiations between deputies on which body should assume these duties.

Orlando’s report was published on Thursday night (27).

In a previous version, the deputy gave the Executive the prerogative to create an autonomous supervisory entity to regulate the project’s devices, monitor compliance with the rules, initiate administrative processes and apply sanctions in case of non-compliance with obligations.

The point was criticized by the opposition, which dubbed the body the “Ministry of Truth”. According to opponents, there could be a risk of ideological interference in the agency, with the removal of content from opponents.

Faced with resistance, Orlando decided to withdraw the regulatory agency from its new opinion. But, according to the parliamentarian, the debate on who is responsible for regulating the platforms will remain open until voting day – scheduled for Tuesday (2).

“The autonomous supervisory entity was very poorly received in the Chamber. There was a lot of criticism from several benches. My impression is that, if we maintained this idea, it could ban the debate and make the proposal’s progress unfeasible. My perspective was to remove this idea from the scene. autonomous supervisory entity, allow the debate to flow in the Chamber of Deputies and we build, from today until the vote, which will be the path”, said Orlando, after filing his report.

According to him, in the discussions of the proposal there is a group that wants this task to fall to Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency) — a hypothesis that has little support in the Chamber.

“There are those who defend that it is Anatel, an agency that regulates telecommunications and broadcasting, [que] already has a structure in place, funding, technical staff, etc. There are those who argue that there is no such institution, and that Justice should be the arbitrator when there are conflicts; and, before Justice enters, self-regulation. It’s a second model, so we’ll have to deepen the debate.”

The Fake News PL vote gained strength in the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government after the coup attacks on January 8 and after the attacks on schools in São Paulo and Blumenau (SC).

The text under discussion brings, among other points, a series of obligations to social media platforms and messaging apps, such as content moderation.

Orlando Silva also included in his report a device saying that the law should observe “the free exercise of expression and religious cults, whether in person or remotely, and the full exposition of its dogmas and sacred books”.

The item seeks to meet the request of the evangelical bench, which threatened to vote against the proposal if “religious freedom” was not made explicit.

The report also stipulates that the material parliamentary immunity provided for in the Constitution extends to social networks. In addition, it determines which accounts of presidents, governors, mayors, ministers, secretaries and other positions are considered to be of public interest. From this, it prohibits the holders from restricting the visualization of their publications by other users.

For social networks there are obligations, for example, to produce transparency reports and to identify all boosted and advertising content.

According to the text, court decisions that determine the immediate removal of illicit content related to the commission of crimes referred to in the law must be complied with by companies within 24 hours, under penalty of a fine of between R$ 50 thousand and R$ 1 million per hour of noncompliance.

The opposition criticized an excerpt from Orlando’s previous report with determination for networks to act “skilfully and diligently” when notified of potentially illegal content generated by third parties within the scope of their services, which constitute or incite crimes against the democratic rule of law and coup of State, acts of terrorism and crimes against children and adolescents.

The deputy softened the device and indicated only that “providers must act diligently to prevent and mitigate illegal practices within the scope of their services, making efforts to improve the fight against the dissemination of illegal content generated by third parties”.

Among the main points of the project are the duty of platforms to veto inauthentic accounts, the mandatory disclosure of transparency reports on content moderation and the creation of a transparency and accountability council, in addition to carrying out studies, opinions and recommendations on freedom, accountability and transparency on the internet.

The project also establishes a fine of up to 10% of the revenue of the economic group in Brazil in case of non-compliance with the law.

Orlando Silva’s text also provides for payment by the platforms for the journalistic content used, without this cost being passed on to the end user. Regarding the form of payment, the text points out that the agreement must be made between the platforms and the journalistic companies.

The platforms are opposed to the idea of ​​remuneration, and there is dissent among the vehicles. Entities such as Abert (Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters), Aner (National Association of Magazine Editors) and ANJ (National Association of Newspapers), which brings together the main media outlets, including Sheet, defend the PL; Smaller vehicles fear losing funding because they have less bargaining power.

The bill was approved in the Senate in 2020. The following year, the House created a working group to analyze the text. The progress, however, did not occur and, in 2022, the deputies rejected to give urgency to the analysis.

After Lula’s election and with the coup attacks on January 8, Deputy Arthur Lira (PP-AL), President of the Chamber, started to defend the urgency —approved on Tuesday (25).

The speed in voting on the project is criticized by big techs like Meta, Google, Twitter and Tik Tok.