Fake News PL: TSE proposes to remove content without notification – 04/25/2023 – Power

The TSE (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral) sent suggestions to the Congressional summit for the Fake News bill, which include the immediate removal of content that poses a risk to information security and violates the rights of children and adolescents without the obligation for the user to be notified. from that.

The proposals were forwarded by the president of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes, to the presidents of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), and of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG). The urgency of the text should be voted on this Tuesday (25th) and the merits, next Tuesday (2nd).

The amendments proposed by the TSE consider the text approved by the Senate and which underwent several changes during the course of action in the Chamber, where it is under the rapporteurship of Deputy Orlando Silva (PC do B-SP).

The court suggests incorporating into the article dealing with content moderation a device that obliges platforms, under penalty of civil and administrative liability, to immediately make content and accounts unavailable, with waiver of notifying users, if they verify or there is a well-founded doubt of risk of damage difficult to repair or for information or user security.

This may also happen if there is a risk of violating the rights of children and adolescents, a crime of racism or seriously compromising the usability, integrity or stability of the application. These points are included in the text approved by the Senate.

The TSE includes four other risks. The court wants conduct, information and anti-democratic acts and the disclosure or sharing of facts known to be untrue or seriously out of context that affect the integrity of the electoral process, including the voting, counting and totaling of votes, to be considered.

It also wants to add the risk of serious threat, direct and immediate, of violence or incitement to violence against the physical integrity of public officials or against the physical infrastructure of the State to restrict or prevent the exercise of constitutional powers or the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law ; and hateful behavior or speech, including promotion of racism, homophobia, Nazi, fascist or hateful ideologies against a person or group through prejudice based on origin, race, gender, color, age and any other forms of discrimination.

Another suggestion by the electoral court is to replicate the provisions of the resolution approved by the court plenary ten days before the second round of elections in the Fake News PL. The norm unprecedentedly expanded the powers of the TSE in conducting the electoral process.

The resolution allowed the TSE, “in a reasoned decision”, to determine the immediate removal of content from social networks considered “untrue or seriously out of context that affect the integrity of the electoral process”.

As a result, the court was able to act ex officio, that is, without being provoked by candidacies or the Electoral Public Ministry, to deal with misinformation about the ballot box, for example.

The instrument also allows for the temporary suspension of profiles, accounts or channels, in cases where there is “systematic production of misinformation, characterized by the persistent publication of false or out-of-context information about the electoral process”.

Both at the TSE and in inquiries that are being processed by the STF (Federal Supreme Court), Alexandre de Moraes led investigations related to the existence of a digital militia aimed at discrediting the electoral process. Former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and allies are targets of investigations.