Vini Jr. and impunity for ‘big techs’ – 05/25/2023 – Reinaldo Azevedo

The worldwide indignation with the racist attacks on the player Vini Jr. it even gave me some hope that the debate on freedom of expression and the civil liability of networks and content providers will start to frequent the territories of civility. It’s not easy. Times are somewhat hostile to systemic thinking. “Ad hoc” arguments take the place of the concept, and it is not rare that, invited to explain what is the value that guides a certain choice, the debater prefers to tell a story or come up with an example. Instead of the thesis, the illustration.

It is Sheet published on Tuesday (23) an editorial on the Vini Jr. And from there I extract this excerpt: “Football organizers and players should not wait for the State authorities to take action”. And that. There is talk of acts that are considered crimes in Spain as well. The world demanded measures from the government, Valencia, Fifa and La Liga, the entity that organizes the championship. The sponsors were confronted. It is understood that all these entities are responsible for the spectacle and have the unavoidable duty of care.

Judgments of disapproval of the omission of these private agents, who had been living with delinquency, multiplied, as if to say: “We cannot control what people say in stadiums”. It even seemed that they had read article 19 of our Civil Rights Framework for the Internet: “In order to ensure freedom of expression and prevent censorship, the internet application provider may only be civilly liable for damages resulting from content generated by third parties if , after a specific court order, does not take measures to, within the scope and technical limits of its service and within the stated period, make the content identified as infringing unavailable, subject to legal provisions to the contrary”.

Someone prove to me that the club, La Liga, sponsors and FIFA are not to football what “application providers” are to platforms and networks, and fans to “content generated by third parties”. There is no lack of sponsors in this relationship, who take the form of advertisers. Thus, along with the editorial, I think that one should not “await the action of the State authorities” —or the “specific court order”— for criminals to be banned from stadiums and, I say, from the networks, under penalty of being held accountable civil.

“Ah, you too, Reinaldo, resort to examples instead of sticking to the principle?” I never abandoned it: freedom of expression is not an absolute right in any domain of social experience. I am highlighting what, in effect, is up for debate in both cases. After all, one might ask: “How are Valencia or La Liga going to know what’s on the minds of Garcías, Rodriguez and González?” It is not about interpreting minds, but about taking effective measures to curb crimes. Given the impossibility of guessing —the Sanchez are always unpredictable—, preventive measures are taken.

And this is what will be done in Brazil, through congress or through the courts. Given our legislation, demonstrations that are criminal in stadiums or elsewhere are also criminal on networks and platforms. In the bill reported by Deputy Orlando Silva (PC do B-SP), the issues that give rise to the duty of care are specified in Article 11. The foundation of this column: in democracy, no one is above the law, be it “big tech” , fan, journalist, internet user or comedian. “And the parliamentarians?” Neither do they. Extended immunity to networks is irrelevant. The STF has already decided that this is not synonymous with impunity even in Congress. The game is cleaner.

PS: Not to say that I didn’t mention it etc… The framework will be approved, and, according to Roberto Campos Neto in this Sheet“the market looks [que ele] completely eliminated that risk of the debt simply getting out of control”. Again, the Apocalypse will not come. And, because it never comes, the doomsday prophets will continue to foresee it. Yes, everything has its price, Holy God!, and we must take care of our forests, which are under threat.”We must cultivate our garden,” said Candido.It is a principle, not an illustration.

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