Brazil’s Electoral Court considers Telegram ban to tackle ‘fake news’

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) is considering a Telegram ban to address fake news ahead of the presidential elections in the country later this year.

TSE Chief Luis Roberto Barroso is currently discussing measures concerning the app with other Court Justices. The latest developments follow Barroso’s numerous failed attempts to contact representatives of the messaging app.

What qualifies as fake news in the eyes of the judges remains to be seen.
Many critics say that it is nothing more than a fancy word for censorship.

It is an open secret that Luis Roberto Barroso is one of the arch-enemies of sitting President Jair Bolsonaro, and observers fear that with this measure the flood gates will be opened for the Electoral Court to condemn to illegality during the presidential elections all criticism, conversations, and statements offered by Bolsonarists.

In December 2021, the Court’s Chief Justice sent a letter to Telegram’s executive director Pavel Durov, requesting a meeting with the company to discuss ways to tackle the spread of false information through the app.

According to sources, Barroso sent emails to the company requesting the meeting, and the Court Chief posted a physical letter to the firm’s supposed head offices in Dubai, but it was not delivered.

Barroso said that if Telegram failed to cooperate with the Brazilian authorities, Congress should be able to prevent it from operating in the country.

In a statement released on Tuesday, January 18, TSE noted that “no relevant actor to the electoral process of 2022 can operate in Brazil without legal representation, responsible for compliance to the national legislation and legal decisions.”

The Court noted that it has partnered with nearly all tech platforms in terms of ensuring “free, clean, and safe” elections and that “exceptions are not desirable.”

Telegram is the platform of choice of president Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters for mass communication. The head of state was elected in 2018 amid reports of a multimillion-dollar defamatory scheme whereby international numbers sent hundreds of millions of vitriolic messages attacking his then opponent through the app.

After WhatsApp imposed a limit of 5 messages for message forwarding worldwide in 2019 in an effort to tackle the spread of so-called fake news, Bolsonaro sought an alternative platform to communicate with his base.

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