TJ-RS maintains the agency’s conviction

The Court of Justice of Rio Grande do Sul (TJ-RS) upheld the conviction of the Checking Agency Aos Fatos for accusing Jornal da Cidade Online, a news website, of being part of an “articulated network of disinformation”. The decision was taken last Wednesday (31), unanimously, by three judges of the 5th Civil Chamber. The agency’s defense said it will appeal the decision.

The fight between the checking agency and the newspaper began after Aos Fatos stated, in an article published in 2020, that Jornal da Cidade maintained a monetization partnership with the Verdade Sufocada page, maintained by Joseita Brilhante Ustra, widow of Colonel Carlos Brilhante Ustra.

In the text of the article, the agency says that Jornal da Cidade Online “shares a monetization strategy through advertisements” with the widow of Ustra’s page and adds that it “proved the link between Verdade Sufocada and Jornal da Cidade Online from a code shared by both: the Google AdSense ID”. After publication, Jornal da Cidade Online filed a lawsuit for compensation for moral damages, for denying the relationship with the site Verdade Suffocada.

During the course of the process, Google was questioned about the alleged link pointed out in the text of Aos Fatos. In response, the platform reported that there was “no record that the URL is or has been part of the Google AdSense Program”.

In view of this, first instance judge Diego Diel Barth understood that Google’s manifestation was sufficient to prove that theaos Fatos article is not based on true information. For this reason, he condemned Aos Fatos to pay compensation of R$10,000 to Jornal da Cidade Online and to remove the article, with a daily fine of R$500 in case of non-compliance.

The agency’s defense appealed the decision to the TJ-RS. Lawyers argued that Google would have responded dubiously to the questioning of the process and tried to get TJ to make a new request for information from the platform. They also stated that it was up to Jornal da Cidade Online, which filed the lawsuit, to demonstrate that the agency Aos Fatos was lying, and that the decision of the first instance would be injuring freedom of expression, intending to censor a journalistic vehicle.

The judges rejected these arguments and maintained the understanding of the judge of first instance. The judges also denied, in the decision, an increase in compensation requested by Jornal da Cidade Online (from R$ 10,000 to R$ 100,000).

Digital militia survey

The lawyer for Aos Fatos, Flavia Penido, cited the inquiry into the digital militias, opened by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, at the Federal Supreme Court (STF), to defend the agency. “When reading the judgment, in my opinion it was clear that the Court ignored the order of Minister Alexandre de Moraes mentioning Jornal Cidade Online in the Digital Militias Inquiry”, she said, in a written message. “The office will appeal and is confident the decision will be reversed,” she continued.

The digital militia inquiry, as well as other similar ones opened in the STF, has been criticized by jurists for bringing together several acts considered unconstitutional: opening an investigation in court (not provided for in the Constitution, the Judiciary must be provoked), lack of access to the full of the records of investigations by the accused and other violations of the broad right of defense and due process of law.

The Lawyer for Aos Fatos also stated that the news site would have confessed to the use of the ad sense on the site Verdade Suffocada, which is denied by the lawyer Emerson Grigollete, who defends the news site. He recalled that Google itself confirmed that the relationship pointed out in the agency’s text does not exist.