Laws already reach social networks, balance is needed – 04/11/2024 – Marcos Augusto Gonçalves

The withdrawal of the so-called Fake News Bill by the President of the Chamber, Arthur Lira, who announced a commission to debate the issue, has rightly been considered the funeral of the desires of many in favor of stricter regulation of digital platforms.

The decision came in the wake of the storm caused by statements by tycoon Elon Musk against the STF, minister Alexandre de Moraes and the Brazilian government.

Musk, as we know, is an unscrupulous character, who presents himself as a defender of freedom of expression, but is a leader of the international far right and an ultra-liberal opportunist in defense of his businesses. I’ve already called him China’s tchutchuca when I remember that he doesn’t say a peep about the restrictions on freedoms in that country, where his Tesla is installed. He maintains good relations with the top leadership of the government, therefore the Chinese Communist Party, and with Xi Jinping himself.

There is no doubt that for Musk and his entourage of extreme right-wingers, here represented by Bolsonar coup supporters, the less regulation, the better.

The issue, as it turns out, is complex, although easy to resolve within the scope of the voluntarism of political disputes, with the proposal to shut up these fascist people with their fake news and anti-democratic preaching.

As I have already mentioned on another occasion, the basic regulation, which makes sense, is to consider that what is considered a crime in life outside of platforms is also a crime in the digital sphere – a premise that already applies. In an article published by Ilustríssima in March 2023, Thiago Camargo, lawyer, master in public administration from Columbia, former government secretary and former member of the Internet Steering Committee, considered that the often propagated idea that platforms are land Without law it is not true.

He said: “The legal system already exists to punish any crime or attempt that occurs with the help of platforms. When authorities do their part, crimes and their perpetrators pay for it, as we have seen happen repeatedly in recent months. The hundreds of arrests resulting from the operations to repress the coup attempt on January 8th show that we are more successful in investigating crimes organized by Telegram than homicides, for example.”

There is no doubt that there remain relevant aspects, such as the degree of responsibility of companies in the sector for the messages conveyed and the mechanisms used by them, based on algorithms, which inflate and multiply content that is born or turns out to be criminal – a long and turbulent discussion .

The desire to “solve everything” with regulations is understandable – as much as it is debatable – in order to prohibit, in this case, the dissemination of what is considered fake news or anti-democratic opinions. However, the idea that it is possible to determine and suppress a priori, without the intervention of the Judiciary and the adversary system, what would be fake news or preaching against the Rule of Law, is problematic.

Remember that X itself is and continues to be used by people from across the ideological spectrum, including champions of regulation and the fight against the extreme right.

A Marxist who called on citizens to adhere to the well-known thesis that the reign of human freedom will only be achieved with the overthrow of liberal bourgeois democracy and the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat or a government led by the party of socialist revolution would not be attacking what Is it considered the rule of law today? Should it be censored online?

It is in the field of politics, persuasion, mobilization and the timely and necessary use of Justice that such dilemmas must be addressed by society – and this certainly includes the effort to expose the responsibility that actually exists on the part of big tech.

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