Judgment on big techs in the STF may have interruptions – 05/16/2023 – Politics

Under resistance from big techs and annoyance from Congress, the STF (Supreme Federal Court) may start this week the judgment of a package of actions that deals with topics ranging from the suspension of social networks through a decision of the Justice to the overthrow of an article from the Marco Civil da Internet.

The processes were guided by the president of the Supreme Court, Rosa Weber, in the midst of discussions in the Chamber on the so-called PL of Fake News.

It is still unclear, however, whether the trials will go ahead in court. Internally, there is an understanding that trials can be postponed or, if started, suffer interruptions such as requests for review (more time for analysis) for the Legislature to decide on the subject.

In the plenary sessions of the STF this week, on Wednesday (17) and Thursday (18), the court will still have to analyze a criminal action by Lava Jato against former president Fernando Collor, which may postpone the start of the judgment on big techs.

In addition, for this semester there are other important issues that will need the attention of the magistrates, such as the Temporal Framework thesis in the demarcation of indigenous lands and the implementation of the so-called guarantee judge.

However, the fact that the processes that affect technology companies are scheduled for analysis by ministers generates pressure for the Legislative Power to anticipate and prevent the Supreme Court from legislating through a judicial decision.

The most important actions in the package of judgments on social networks are called general repercussions (which focus on similar cases). They are reported respectively by ministers Dias Toffoli and Luiz Fux.

The process under Toffoli’s responsibility deals with the constitutionality of article 19 of the Marco Civil da Internet, sanctioned in 2014 by then-president Dilma Rousseff (PT).

This article states that a platform will only be civilly liable for content posted by its users if it fails to comply with a court order to remove the content.

In the appeal that reached the Supreme Court and will serve as a concrete case for the judgment of Toffoli’s action, a woman asked Facebook to remove a fake profile that pretended to be her and offended several people. Facebook declined to act. She asked for the overthrow of the profile and compensation for moral damages.

The action reported by Fux is similar and deals with the duty of the host company to supervise the content that is published by its users and to remove it from the air when considered offensive, without intervention of the Judiciary.

In the action, a teacher asked Orkut (which was bought by Google) to take down a community that had criticized and offended her. She was not answered, and asks Google, in addition to removal, compensation for moral damages.

Rosa Weber also highlighted actions reported by her and Minister Edson Fachin that discuss whether court decisions can interrupt WhatsApp messaging services and question the interpretation of Marco Civil provisions.

At the Supreme Court, most ministers understand that there is a need for regulation of social networks.

In March, the issue was discussed at a public hearing at the Supreme Court, when justices Luís Roberto Barroso, Gilmar Mendes and Alexandre de Moraes insisted on defending this need.

Moraes said that the current network regulation model is “absolutely inefficient”, “bankrupt” and “destroys reputations and dignities”.

The companies, in turn, demonstrated against the unconstitutionality of article 19. Facebook Brasil stated that, however, it supports “the healthy debate on complementary regulation”.

According to him, Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram) has invested billions of dollars to comply with its terms of use and policies and “immediately complied with hundreds of court orders from higher courts, including in the context of investigations into the criminal acts of January 8”.

Google said that in Brazil alone in 2022 YouTube removed more than 1 million videos that violated the company’s policies against misinformation, hate speech, violence, harassment and child safety.

“This number contrasts with a much smaller amount of judicial requests for the removal of content”, said the company’s defense.

“Bringing digital platforms responsible, as if they themselves were the authors of the content they host or display, would lead to a generic duty to monitor all content produced by people. This would entirely denature the plural environment of the internet and create pressure to remove any minimally controversial speech.”

At the time, while Meta was adamant in opposing any type of punishment for third-party content, Google showed that it already has some change in the liability regime and went to the damage reduction phase.

Rosa guided the analysis of the processes about big techs on the same day that Telegram provoked a reaction from the government, Congress and Public Ministry after sending a message to users of the platform distorting the PL of Fake News.

The next day, Moraes threatened to take Telegram off the air for a period of 72 hours if the messaging service did not remove the messages.

Marco Civil, from 2014, is the main law that regulates the internet in Brazil and determines that platforms can only be civilly liable for third-party content if they do not comply with court orders for removal.