Who is Dario Durigan, Haddad’s new No. 2 at the Farm – 05/08/2023 – Market

Chosen as the new number two of the Ministry of Finance, Dario Durigan has a degree in law, was a special advisor at the São Paulo City Hall and worked for WhatsApp during the negotiations of the Fake News bill in Congress.

The diversified experience, with work in public administration and in the private sector, is cited by interlocutors as a credential for the position —which carries as one of its attributions to command the Treasury when its holder, Fernando Haddad, is absent from the country.

Durigan is described by people who know him as smart and resourceful. On the other hand, there is still doubt about how it will perform on a day-to-day basis in a ministry as large as the Treasury, which at the same time conducts guidelines such as the new fiscal framework and measures for the credit sector, and in dialogue with other members of the government and Congress.

His predecessor, Gabriel Galípolo, now nominated for the directorship of the Central Bank, set his stamp on these two fronts, helping to bring to life an intense schedule of announcements in the first four months of the government and acting in conversations with the Legislative.

The new number 2 of the Treasury is not famous in the financial market like its predecessor, but it is known in the public bureaucracy. The first impressions of government interlocutors are that there is some fear with the pace of the portfolio’s decisions based on the exchange.

The change is announced at a crucial moment for the government, with articulations of key proposals for the economic agenda – such as the new fiscal framework and tax reform.

As a representative of WhatsApp, Durigan attended public hearings on another proposal that is now decisive for the government, although it is outside the direct purview of the Treasury: the Fake News PL, which aims to toughen the rules against social networks.

On the occasion, he defended the point of view of the messaging app belonging to the Meta group (formerly Facebook). The so-called big techs and the government are fighting over the content of the text, which last week had a vote postponed amid the risk of defeat for the allied base.

In the discussions about the proposal, Durigan already defended that certain passages represent a very broad intervention in the company’s business model, establishing conditions that would worsen the service for the user.

According to the opinion of the PL’s rapporteur, Orlando Silva (PC do B-SP), Durigan told parliamentarians that WhatsApp has already adopted successful measures to curb abuses of freedom of expression, such as reducing forwarding chains, without tracking data from users. “In 2020, for example, the mass shooting of messages was prohibited”, says the text.

In his view, however, the project would eventually identify all mass forwarding messages from users, which would violate personal data protection and users’ rights.

Tech giants have used different strategies to stop the project. As shown by SheetGoogle launched an offensive against the text, according to emails, prints and reports obtained by the report, in addition to a survey by NetLab, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

Durigan joined WhatsApp in 2020. He started his career as an intern at the Pinheiro Neto law firm, one of the main ones in São Paulo, and at the Federal Public Ministry.

Afterwards, he accumulated experience in the federal public service. He was project coordinator at the Attorney General’s Office and became advisor to the Chief of Staff’s Legal Affairs in 2011, during the government of Dilma Rousseff (PT).