The president of the House, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), decided to postpone the vote on Bill 2630/2020, called the PL of Fake News (Censorship Bill), which was scheduled for this Tuesday (2).
One of the main criticisms of the opposition was that the project had not been debated with society.
The government and allies leaders wanted, until Tuesday afternoon, that the vote be held as soon as possible.
But the opinion of the governors changed quickly after they could not identify whether they could win.
Lira then followed the majority of the House’s leadership, which favored the request for removal from the agenda made by the governing congressman Orlando Silva (PCdoB-SP), rapporteur of the project.
Opposition party leaders opposed the removal from the agenda, believing that a vote on Tuesday would defeat the government.
The opposition pressured Lira to set a new date for the vote.
The government and the president of the House wanted leeway to negotiate with parliamentarians and ensure a favorable vote, so they decided not to set a new date.
In favor of the Fake News Bill, the president of the House was trying, along with the governing coalition, to reach agreements so that the project could be voted on Tuesday.
The last-minute meetings did not have enough effect to give the government confidence that the project would be approved.
Before the definition of withdrawal from the agenda, Orlando Silva justified the postponement request by stating the lack of “useful time to examine all the suggestions.”
“I would like to appeal so that, after consulting the leaders, we could remove the proposal from today’s agenda and we could consolidate the incorporation of all the suggestions that were made to have a position that unifies the Plenary of the House of Representatives in a movement to combat disinformation and guarantee freedom of expression,” he said.
Leadership from PP, Republicans, PT, PDT, Pol, PCdoB, and Patriot favored the postponement; PL and Novo were against it.
“It is common knowledge that it is unfeasible to vote on this matter. The rapporteur received more than 90 amendments for a project that many do not know the text (sic),” said Representative André Fufuca (MA), leader of the PP and representative of the largest bloc in the House.
Lira said that Orlando Silva’s request was crucial to removing it from the agenda.
“Listening carefully to the request of the rapporteur – which for me is already enough – and the leaders, who in their majority forward for a way out of the maintenance of dialogue, the project will not be voted on tonight,” he said.
He also made it expressly clear that he would not set a new date after being urged by the opposition.
The proposal, focused on the issue of the responsibility of social networks concerning the content published by third parties, entered into an urgency regime last week with votes in favor of 238 parliamentarians.
In the new wording of the proposal, the rapporteur had removed controversial provisions, such as the creation of an “autonomous supervisory entity” that, according to the penultimate version of the bill, should be established by the Executive Branch.
Speaking in the Plenary this Tuesday afternoon, Representative Bia Kicis (PL-DF) said that the project, “besides censorship, brings something very serious, which is the rupture with the homeland legal system.”
“The Constitution does not allow censorship. It expressly rejects all kinds of censorship.”
“Besides, this bill will allow political persecution – which is already happening without this bill, without the law. We have been suffering persecution by the Judiciary, which is rigged.”
“What this Congress will do today, if it approves this bill, will legitimize persecution, censorship, and the rupture with the due legal process.”
“And we cannot do that. That would be the real crime.”
LIRA DEFENDS ACCOUNTABILITY OF BIG TECHS FOR AN OFFENSIVE AGAINST FAKE NEWS BILL
Criticized by the opposition for defending the postponement of the vote, Lira said that his position favoring regulating the networks was in defense of the Chamber itself.
“We gave Big Techs a week to do the horror they did with the Federal Chamber, and I didn’t see anyone here defending the Federal Chamber.”
“In a country with a minimum of seriousness, Google, Instagram, TikTok, all media had to be held accountable.”
“How do you have a dishonorable treatment with this House on a search site?” said Lira.
After approving the urgent vote, companies that control the largest social networks publicly spoke out against the bill supported by the Lula government.
In a statement released on Saturday (29), Meta – the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – argued that the project creates a system “similar to that of anti-democratic regimes” and brings conflicts with Brazilian laws related to the internet, such as the Civil Framework of the Internet and the General Law of Data Protection (LGPD).
The company also pointed out the risk of creating a “permanent surveillance system, similar to that of countries with anti-democratic regimes.”
Two days earlier, Google published a statement titled “How PL 2630 can make your internet worse,” criticizing the bill.
For the company, the bill’s approval could harm freedom of expression, favor fake news producers, and endanger free content distribution over the internet.
The link to the company’s manifesto was included on the search engine’s homepage for all Brazilian users.
Youtube was another one to position itself. The video platform fears “huge implications for the entire internet, including for YouTube content creators.
First, the bill forces platforms to take down certain illicit content more proactively.
Given the imposition of greater accountability on social networks – the main novelty of the proposal – the companies that own these platforms would be required to structure themselves to expedite the removal of content published by third parties, which would add a layer of censorship to that already being imposed by the Brazilian Judiciary on social networks.
The jurists also criticize the lack of openness to debate and the hastiness of the project, which all sectors of society have not properly discussed.
Another problem pointed out is the delivery of the monopoly of truth to the State, which would have greater power over social networks.
One of the provisions of the bill talks about establishing “security protocols” when there is “imminent risk” – a category with a subjective definition.
This can lead to situations where, for example, a social network suffers censorship by not curbing the call for a protest against a state institution, depending on the interpretation of “imminent risk” by the Judiciary or the regulatory body of the law.
The bill also grants privileges to the major news media to the detriment of social networks.
With this, one of the great benefits of the internet – the democratization of the consumption and production of information – could be diminished with its approval.
In addition to requiring the networks to intensify their surveillance role, increasing the potential for censorship of content that deviates from political correctness, the bill demands the remuneration of journalistic media by the platforms when their content is published on the networks.
Another controversy of the Fake News Bill is the excessive use of open and imprecise expressions, which may give way to authoritarian decisions, and the lack of a clear definition of which agencies would be responsible for ensuring compliance with each provision.
This nebulosity is worrisome because it opens space, for example, to later interpretations that allow the creation of regulatory bodies with censorship power or decrees of authoritarian bias with the alleged purpose of regulating the law.
With information from Gazeta do Povo