Brazilian Novo Party criticizes Censorship Bill: ‘Democracy dies on the sidelines”

The Novo Party criticized the Censorship Bill (PL 2630/2020), which had its urgency request approved in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, 25.

“The Lula government has used the recent attacks on schools across the country to want to gain moderating power and decide what is illegal in social networks,” Novo said in a statement released to the press.

According to Senator Eduardo Girão (Novo-CE), the Censorship Bill, in practice, may legitimize prior censorship in social networks to curb freedom of expression, “an essential factor for the functioning of any democracy.

DEMOCRACY DIES ON THE SIDELINES

Federal congresswoman Adriana Ventura (SP), leader of Novo in the House, said that an extremely dangerous point of PL 2630/2020 is that it authorizes the Executive Branch to create an “autonomous oversight entity” to detail and regulate the provisions of the law, inspect and apply sanctions.

“A real Ministry of Truth,” she said, and added: “Democracy dies on the sidelines.”

Federal congressman Gilson Marques (Novo-SC) said, “Many congress members may have voted for urgency because of an agreement with Lira, but they will be against the merit.”

THE CENSORSHIP BILL

The urgency regime for the Censorship Bill was approved by 238 votes to 192.

The Novo Party and the Liberal Party (PL) were against the urgent vote.

With no final version yet, the current text of the bill, which in the House of Representatives has Congressman Orlando Silva (PCdoB-SP) as rapporteur, proposes imprisonment for one to three years and a fine for those who promote or finance the mass dissemination of messages with “a fact that is known to be untrue” and that may “compromise the electoral process” or cause damage “to physical integrity.

In addition, if the bill is approved, social networking platforms and messaging applications will be held responsible for their users’ content.

Under the bill, these companies will have to publish biannual reports with information about the moderation of fake news.

With information from Revista Oeste