Brazil on Friday gave social media giant Meta 72 hours to explain its fact-checking policy for the country, and how it plans to protect “fundamental rights” on its platforms.
Attorney General Jorge Messias told reporters that his office may take “legal and judicial” action against Meta if it does not respond in time to an extrajudicial notice filed on Friday.
Citing Meta’s “lack of transparency,” Messias said the company “will have 72 hours to inform the Brazilian government of its actual policy for Brazil.”
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg shocked many with his announcement on Tuesday that he was pull the plug fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram in the US, citing concerns about political bias and censorship.
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The move has raised concerns in several countries, including Brazil, that is vulnerable to misinformation.
The Brazilian presidency said the changes at Meta were an important topic of discussion in a phone call Friday between Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
The leaders “agreed that freedom of speech does not mean freedom to spread lies, prejudices and insults.”
Also caused concern where Meta’s new, looser restrictions on speech on topics such as gender and sexual identity were announced on Thursday.
According to the government’s extrajudicial notice, the new guidelines allow users to associate sexual identity with “a mental illness or abnormality” and allows “the defense occupational restrictions based on gender.”
“We will not allow, under any circumstances, that these networks turn the environment into a digital massacre or barbarism,” Messias said, highlighting Brazil’s strict laws protecting children and vulnerable populations.
“Respect Brazilian legislation”
The extrajudicial notice asks for clarity on how social media algorithms will be designed “in order to unswervingly promote and protect fundamental rights.”
Brazil also wants to know what measures will be taken to prevent gender-based violence, racism, homophobia, transphobia, suicide, hate speech and other fundamental rights issues.
The country also wants details on how complaints can be submitted, and how contradictions and misinformation in the new user-generated “community notes” system will be handled.
“The government will not stand idly by, as you can see,” Messias said.
The decision to hand over the deadline to Meta came after a cabinet meeting overseen by Lula about the consequences of the changes for Brazil.
“All companies operating in the country must respect Brazilian law and jurisdiction“, Lula wrote on X after the meeting.
On Wednesday, Brazil’s attorney general sent a letter to local Meta representatives giving the company 30 days to clarify whether it intends to implement the fact-checking changes in the country.
Brazil’s Supreme Court has taken a strong stance on regulating social media platforms.
Last year, assess Alexandre de Moraes blocked Elon Musk’s X platform for 40 days for non-compliance a series of court order against online misinformation.
AFP currently works in 26 languages with Facebook’s fact-checking program, including in the US and the EU.
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