Lira considers postponing the vote on the Fake News PL in the Chamber – 05/01/2023 – Power

The vote on the Fake News PL in the Chamber of Deputies, scheduled for this Tuesday (2), may be postponed in view of the chances of the text being rejected by the plenary.

This Tuesday, the mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), will talk to the party leaders to make a decision. The text’s rapporteur, Orlando Silva (PC do B-SP), should also meet with his peers. The postponement is considered a likely scenario by government supporters —Palácio do Planalto endorses the matter— and opposition.

The tight score to impose urgency to the matter, the pressure of big techs against the text and the arrival of deputies, especially from the evangelical bench, made the scenario uncertain in relation to the approval of the text.

The project is seen, along with the economic agenda, as one of the most important for the government in this first semester. The Executive’s assessment is that the regulation of social networks would prevent an even greater advance of former president Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) militancy on the internet.

Supporters of the former chief executive, however, are hopeful of overthrowing the project.

Last Thursday (28), Orlando Silva published the final version of the text that will be submitted to the plenary, with concessions made to meet the demands of the evangelical group and the opposition. For example, the prediction of a regulatory agency was withdrawn.

The movement, however, does not seem to have been enough to guarantee the approval of the matter. On Saturday (29), the president of the Republicans, Marcos Pereira, announced that the party will vote against the project.

The decision is important because, in the approval of the emergency regime by 238 to 192, the acronym was fundamental, with 29 votes in favor of the faster procedure.

If the vote on the project follows what was recorded last week, just reversing such votes, the text would not be approved – a simple majority is required for a proposal to advance in the Chamber.

Marcos Pereira said that the votes in favor of a faster procedure cannot be confused with the position in relation to the merits of the issue.

“Nobody committed to voting on the project itself,” he declared. “It is true that he [relator] made several adjustments to the text, accepted many suggestions from the evangelical bench, from several parliamentarians from various parties, including the Republicans, but the text is still bad.”

In addition to the change in the political scenario, in the last week the big techs have also increased the pressure for the vote on the project to be postponed, with public demonstrations and advertisements in major newspapers. Voting speed is criticized by companies like Meta, Google, Twitter and Tik Tok.

One of the arguments is that there was not enough discussion on the subject.

Critics of the proposal also claim that there are vague passages and that the prediction of regulation of various devices increases the power for the Executive to control the law.

With reservation, parliamentarians assess that the debate has become ideological and no longer of merit. That is, that the contrary position is due to political opposition and not necessarily due to disagreements regarding the content of the law.

They also understand that there is little room for maneuver for Lira because, as the final report has already been presented, it is not possible to make more changes to the text to try to raise more votes – changes can now only be made during the vote.

One possibility to try to mitigate the Republicans’ disbandment is to gather votes from those who were absent or from parties closer to the government, such as União Brasil or PSD, and which were divided in the urgency deliberation.

The opposition is trying to take the opportunity not only to defeat Orlando Silva’s project, but also to put in its place another proposal for the regulation of social networks, authored by Mendonça Filho (União Brasil-CE).

The idea has been floated since last week by PL deputies, but faces resistance from Lira.

Orlando Silva said he is optimistic about the vote, even in the current scenario.

“What we cannot do is continue with social networks in today’s dynamics. It is necessary to change the regime of responsibilities of digital platforms. The National Congress cannot outsource its tasks. It is unreasonable to let the Judiciary do what is our obligation” , he said.

He also stated that he met “all proposals from the benches” with whom he met and from the Evangelical Parliamentary Front. “If I was presented with proposals and I accepted them, I imagine that whoever proposed the change did so, if accepted, I would vote in favor”, he added.

The project regulates social networks and imposes sanctions on platforms that do not remove illegal content from the air, within 24 hours of a court decision. The proposal gained strength in the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) after the coup-raising on January 8 and the attacks on schools in São Paulo and Blumenau (SC).

The text under discussion brings, among other points, a series of obligations to social media platforms and messaging apps, such as content moderation.

The bill was approved in the Senate in 2020. The following year, the House created a working group to analyze the text. The progress, however, did not occur and, in 2022, the deputies rejected to give urgency to the analysis.

In an interview with Sheet, the Director of Government Relations and Public Policy at Google Brasil, Marcelo Lacerda, stated that the Fake News PL is vague. He said that the company already takes measures to moderate hateful content and that the responsibility for violence in schools does not lie solely with the platforms.

According to him, the text leaves uncertainties about how the platforms will be regulated and is wrong in equating the care required by search engines to that of social networks.

The representative of Twitter Brazil, Hugo Rodríguez, who participated in meetings at the Ministry of Justice about attacks on schools, criticized the vote on the project on Sunday (30).

“Since the first moment, we have been asking different actors for changes that are compatible with international standards. However, the project continues in the same way. It is not yes or no, it is thinking about joint changes, today, not the day of the vote”, he said.