Social network must compensate Adrilles Jorge and remove the limitations imposed on the journalist’s profile| Photo: Playback Instagram

The 2nd Civil Court of São Paulo condemned the social network Instagram to indemnify conservative journalist Adrilles Jorge for having kept his profile for months in the so-called “shadow ban” – the platform’s mechanism that drastically reduces the reach of publications. Justice also determined that Instagram remove the limitations imposed on Adrilles’ profile.

In court, the social network’s defense claimed that the penalty was applied because the journalist would have violated community guidelines, but did not prove the violations, nor did he describe what actually happened. The decision, which can be appealed, was published on Wednesday (29).

“Shadow ban is a kind of censorship, as it is a sneaky penalty that mitigates the account’s traffic, interfering with the normal flow of communications”, explains Emerson Grigollette, lawyer for Adrilles Jorge. “Brazilian law only allows the mitigation of traffic in two express hypotheses: when it is necessary to promote security on the network, such as in cases of invasion, and when there is spam. explains.