Datafolha: 61% say you can’t post whatever you want – 7/1/2023 – Power

In the midst of a central debate in contemporary life, about the limits of freedom of expression, Datafolha investigated the position of Brazilians. For 61%, it is not possible to post anything on social networks, while 38% believe that this should be the rule.

The institute confronted 2,010 people with the following statement: “People should have the right to say what they think on social media, even if it offends someone.” It then reaped the highest rate of disagreement with the sentence — for 44%, a convinced position and for 17%, partial.

Already 25% opted for complete agreement, against 13% who did so partially. Respondents were surveyed from June 12 to 14 in 112 cities, and the survey has a margin of error of two percentage points, plus or minus.

Resistance to total freedom is a little higher among younger people (66% among those aged 16 to 24 years old), more educated (67% among university graduates). Acceptance of the phrase was higher among men (41%) than among women (34%).

In the political cut, given that the discussion was engulfed by the Brazilian polarization in a more accentuated way after the Federal Supreme Court started the fake news inquiry, in 2019, voters of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in 2022 disagree less with the statement (54%) than those of current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT, 66%).

Throughout the investigation led by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, the debate on what is freedom to express an idea, even if conceptually wrong, grew. The minister restricted access to social networks of several defendants in the investigation.

The main focus of the investigations, which overlapped with those against defenders and participants in coup acts, was the Bolsonarist sphere on the networks — the former president always used digital media intensively, arriving at Planalto in the 2018 campaign without traditional resources such as time of TV.

His critics point out, however, the frequent distortion that he and his supporters make of concepts of freedom to disseminate messages of uprising of the constituted order and democracy —the argument also served the judgment of the former president in the Electoral Justice.

For Bolsonaristas, they just have an opinion that can only be questioned if it fits into legal types, while their rivals believe that there have to be established limits.

Obviously, it is a complex debate about the risk of abuse by those who have such means of social control. In May, the same Moraes was criticized by experts for ordering Telegram to remove a message contrary to the Fake News PL, in progress, threatening to suspend the service.

The discussion, however, goes beyond the borders of politics. A recent rumored case involved the comedian Léo Lins, who also in May saw the Justice order him to delete the record of jokes against minorities that he had made.

The case generated repercussions about the limit of humor, and initially Lins received support from classmates, including those who criticize his work as racist and misogynistic. The most famous of them, Fábio Porchat, ended up retreating in defense of the freedom of the joke after an avalanche of criticism.