PL 2630: Big tech bench presents alternative text – 05/15/2023 – Power

The leader of the group known as Frente Digital, Deputy Lafayette Andrada (Republicanos-MG), filed this Monday (15) a substitute for the Fake News PL that changes the accountability regime of platforms and also prohibits companies from removing or reducing the reach of posts and institutional accounts of incumbent parliamentarians.

The text, obtained by Sheet, should be evaluated when the Fake News PL enters the agenda, which may occur this week or next. In the current proposal, parliamentarians have less protection, having only a preferential route to challenge removals and other actions by companies.

The substitute removes from the original text, reported by Deputy Orlando Silva (PC do B-SP), the proposed “duty of care” and “systemic risk analysis”, inspired by European legislation, and attributes to a self-regulation entity the function to impose fines and penalties on companies.

The 2014 Marco Civil da Internet is currently in force – a law that establishes that companies can only be civilly punished for third-party content if they do not remove it after a court order, except in cases of non-consensual nudity or violation of intellectual property.

With PL 2630, which is known as PL das Fake News, platforms could be punished before a court order, but only if they generally fail to comply with the duty to mitigate and combat illegal content, and only after the adoption of a security protocol .

According to the substitute proposed by Andrada, companies could only be punished if there is a “specific request issued by the competent authority for the inspection of law enforcement or for the investigation of non-compliance, which it has actually received” or notification from any user about ” Manifestly illegal content”.

The text characterizes as manifestly illegal “those whose opposition to the Brazilian legal system can be readily attested by any person with average skills, without technical-legal knowledge or specific qualification”.

This would leave companies exposed to penalties for individual content that escapes moderation systems.

But the text addresses, for example, situations in which there is ambiguity. One of the platforms’ main complaints was that banning content that violates the Law on the Democratic Rule of Law, as provided for in the current text of the PL, was too vague and would require companies to practice self-censorship. According to them, it depends a lot on the context to determine whether a post incites the coup or threatens democracy.

But this item is one of the main claims of the government, which made holding platforms accountable for coup content one of its flags after the January 8 attacks in Brasilia.

According to Andrada, the self-regulation entity, made up only of company representatives, would be in charge of imposing fines and punishments on the platforms. If it does not play its role, a multisectoral committee would enter.

“From a technical point of view, the text of the report seems unconstitutional to me, which is why it should not prosper. On merit, I understand that security in internet environments will only be achieved by integrating public and private actions to combat the practice of illegal acts , not only to such ‘fake news’ but without harming the freedom of expression that underpins our democracy.”

The Digital Front brings together about 20 parliamentarians and tends to align itself with the interests of large technology companies in Congress. The group is assisted by the Cidadania Digital institute, which is funded by industry associations.

PL 2630 was approved in the Senate in 2020 and entered the House on an emergency basis at the end of April. On the last 2nd, however, its vote in the plenary was postponed to avoid a defeat by the Lula government.