Google criticizes the urgency in voting on the Fake News PL – 04/20/2023 – Politics

Contrary to the vote on the urgency of the bill on fake news defended by Congress and the government, Google says that the problem of disinformation could be aggravated with the approval of the current text.

The criticisms are in a letter published on Thursday night (20) on a platform blog. Google is also going to carry out an advertising campaign on the Internet and in newspapers warning of the risks, according to the company, of voting on the project without discussing points that, in its understanding, were not the subject of debate in Congress.

The expectation is that the urgency of the project will be voted on next week in the House. The merit would be for another time, in the face of resistance from platforms and opposition deputies, who fear restrictions on freedom of expression.

Director of government relations and public policies at Google Brazil and author of the blog post, Marcelo Lacerda says that the company is not against the discussion of new rules to face fake news and apology for violence. He also praises the dialogue with the text’s rapporteur, Orlando Silva (PC do B-SP), and with the government.

“But a regulation of this size, which could impact the way millions of Brazilians and companies use the internet, needs to follow a rite similar to what we had with the Marco Civil da Internet and the LGPD [Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados]’ he says.

Lacerda claims that a “coordinated process and more time are needed to build legislation that is efficient and balanced.” “The creation of a special commission is a good way for us to do this, as has already been requested, including by base and opposition parliamentarians.”

According to him, the creation of a special commission to discuss the merits of the text would provide an opportunity for the sectors affected by the regulation to manifest themselves.

The project, among other points, brings a series of obligations to providers of social networks and messaging applications, such as content moderation. After the January 8 attacks, the Lula government prepared a proposal that obliges the networks to remove material that incites a coup d’état and forwarded it to congressman Orlando Silva.

The Marco Civil da Internet, in force since 2014, exempts platforms from liability for damages generated by third-party content. The project under discussion makes one more exception to these rules.

In the letter released, Google states that the text proposes significant changes in the way the internet works today in the country and includes new proposals “that may, on the contrary, aggravate the problem of misinformation”.

According to the company, the yearning for a solution for the use of the network in the dissemination of disinformation and, as recently occurred, in the dissemination of apology for attacks on schools is understandable, but “immediate solutions” can have “negative impacts on the lives of people”.

“A hasty legislation can worsen the functioning of the internet, curtail fundamental rights, favor certain groups or sectors of the economy and create mechanisms that put legitimate speeches and freedom of expression at risk”, says the company’s text.

The platform also claims to have already indicated, last year, problems in the text of the bill.

In Google’s understanding, the changes suggested by the law may bring “risk to the safety of users, would affect the ability of small and medium-sized businesses to promote their products and services or, even, for Brazilians to seek and access quality information”.

‘It is true that a project of such complexity deserves more space for discussion and more time for quality debate. This seems to have also been the understanding in the Chamber, when, in April of last year, it rejected in a vote a request for an urgent procedure for PL 2630.”