Flávio Dino uses fake news to defend punishment of big techs

In the midst of the Lula government’s crusade for the approval of bill 2630/20, which has been called PL of Fake News, the Minister of Justice and Security, Flávio Dino, held a press conference this Tuesday (2) to address the precautionary measure by the National Consumer Secretariat (Senacon) against Google. Last Thursday (27), the technology company published a statement on its blog with the title “How PL 2630 can make your internet worse”, in which it criticizes the bill. This Tuesday, however, the company’s manifesto was placed on the home page of the search engine for all Brazilian users, which irritated the federal government, staunch defender of the Fake News PL.

In this Tuesday’s press conference, the minister informed that Senacom’s determination, which is linked to the portfolio commanded by Dino, obliges Google to treat the link that appeared on its home page as advertising. But in addition, it also obliges the technology company to publish a counter-advertisement with messages favorable to the bill.

In his speech, Dino also suggested, without evidence, that the search engine would have made changes to its algorithm to reduce the views of content favorable to the Fake News PL and increase the reach of content critical of the proposal.

One of the government’s bases for directly interfering with the content displayed on the Google page is a document produced by netlab, a research laboratory dedicated to leftist political activism that works with public resources within the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). A People’s Gazette already showed the intense mobilization of the academics who work there to defend agendas of political and ideological bias.

Dino also said that the debate on the regulation of social media had been taking place in terms of normality “until this weekend there was a profusion of materials and studies showing an attempt to censor the debate, to manipulate the debate through actions atypical of companies that have their own economic interests, in the outcome of this debate in the Chamber”.

“We had the reports that were released this weekend by Netlab, from UFRJ, with a series of pertinent questions and with indications that, for example, there was no transparency regarding the advertising carried by one of these companies [o Google]”, said the minister.

Questioned by a reporter, Dino confessed that there is no evidence that Google would have manipulated its algorithm. For the minister, Senacom’s decision has to do with “complaints made by consumers to the agency”, in addition to the report by the activism laboratory.

Minister reinforces fake news that had already been marked by Twitter as false information in his profile

During the press conference, in an attempt to defend the thesis that there would be mass manipulations of technology platforms against the advancement of the Fake News PL, Flávio Dino also endorsed a fake news released by CNN journalist Daniela Lima this Monday (2) . In a live speech, she suggested that she was being censored by Twitter and prevented from posting about the bill. Despite this, as shown by a Reuters report, this Monday services on the platform were unstable or offline in several countries, with reports including accounts being disconnected.

On Twitter, the video published by the journalist on her account with the excerpt in which she mentions the alleged persecution of the social network was marked with a seal of correction, which is inserted by the platform when a large number of users point out false content in a publication. “As reported by Reuters, thousands of users experienced issues with Twitter globally at the time in question, indicating that the source of the error is a technical issue,” reads the correction message.

Even several hours after the speech with false information made by the journalist, Flávio Dino resumed the case in an attempt to reinforce the existence of supposed censorship by Twitter. Yesterday, Lula’s minister had already shared the journalist’s video on his account on the social network – the post remains active, as if it were true information. In Dino’s profile there is also the seal of correction of false information disclosed.

Until this Tuesday afternoon, the minister also kept on his Twitter account the sharing of a post by the political activism group called Sleeping Giants Brasil, which mentions that Twitter would be “logging out the account” of users who were criticizing the PL das Fake News. The group’s post is used as a basis for the announcement, by the ministerwhich would refer the matter to Senacom for analysis in view of the “possibility of abusive practices by companies”.

The stamp that denounces the occurrence of fake news appears in the profiles of Dino and Sleeping Giants. Both the minister and the group usually defend the bill under the justification of combating the dissemination of false news on the internet.

For Dino, censoring Google has to do with protecting Brazilian society from… censorship

When announcing the precautionary measure against Google, Flávio Dino claimed that the government would be “protecting Brazilian society from censorship”. Ironically, while he claims that the government’s conduct has to do with combating hypothetical censorship carried out by the technology company, the government directly interfered with the platform’s website, which is private, and forced the broadcast of a message with content favorable to a bill of interest to the government.

Asked by a reporter about the chances of more drastic measures by the government against Google, such as blocking the site in the country, Dino said that such a possibility exists. “We haven’t even considered withdrawing from the air yet. Evidently, no one has immunity against the law and against the legitimate organs of the State. In theory, yes, it is possible”.