Brazil’s strongest conservative radio network Jovem Pan will be investigated for suspected incitement to violence

The Federal Public Ministry (MPF) opened a civil inquiry to investigate the Jovem Pan network this Monday (Jan. 9). The focus of the investigation will be alleged fake news and “disinformation campaigns”.

Conservative Jovem Pan in Brazil is the largest radio network in LATAM and is growing at unprecedented speed.

Read more about the political persecution of Jovem Pan in Brazil

According to the MPF ordinance, Jovem Pan would have systematically disseminated fake news and “disinformation content” both by “individuals exercising their freedom of opinion and expression” and “in an organized way, by groups intentionally aimed at producing and propagating ‘disinformation campaigns’”.

According to the document, this “has given rise to calls and incitements for demonstrations and violent acts against the constituted Powers, including requests for intervention by the Armed Forces”.

The ordinance also comments that “specific statements in the sense of ‘not condone violent methods’ do not seem to be enough to relativize the seriousness of the large volume of uninformative content and with the potential to incite violence and anti-democratic acts conveyed”.

Jovem Pan, adds the MPF, would be promoting “systematic actions that hinder the population’s access to true information on certain subjects” and conveys “numerous speeches with the potential to encourage and even instigate anti-democratic acts”

The MPF also states that “uninformative content, when disseminated on a large scale in the country’s public sphere, engenders scenarios of ‘informational disorder’ or ‘informational chaos’, which bring with it potentially harmful effects for the population’s understanding of relevant facts”.

Jovem Pan was ordered to provide details, within 15 days, on its programming and on the personal data of presenters and commentators of the programs Jovem Pan News, Morning Show, Os Pingos nos Is, Alexandre Garcia and Jovem Pan – 3 em 1. The MPF also determined that the company cannot make changes to its YouTube channels or exclude or restrict videos, so as not to hinder the investigation.

YouTube will also be required to fully preserve all videos published by Jovem Pan from January 2022 to the present. The video platform must provide the MPF with a complete list of content that was removed by the broadcaster. In addition, it must indicate which videos were subject to content moderation by the platform itself last year, specifying the reasons.

With information from Gazeta do Povo