Lula da Silva wants to force big techs to identify ‘anti-democratic’ content

The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced, this Tuesday, the 24th, its intention to send a package of legislative measures to the National Congress that provides for the criminalization of publications that incite “violence against institutions”.

The measure became known as the “Democracy Package”.

The aim is to present two bills and a constitutional amendment.

The texts are being prepared by the Secretary of Legislative Affairs of the Ministry of Justice, Elias Vaz.

The final version of the “Democracy Package” will be presented later this week by the Minister of Justice and Public Security, Flávio Dino.

“As you identify clear behavior against democracy, you cannot wait for a court decision to take it away”, defended Vaz.

One of the measures requires social media platforms to carry out the preventive removal of content. Companies will be held responsible if they refuse to withdraw publications considered “harmful”.

The project differs from the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, which only provides for companies to be held accountable if they fail to comply with a court order to withdraw content.

With the new law, big techs would have to identify the publication and remove it by their own decision.

Among the contents unwanted by the PT government are the “desire for the abolition of the Democratic State of Law, the encouragement of violent acts against the government and the incitement to animosity between the Armed Forces and the Powers of the Republic”.

Regarding crimes against the democratic order, the proposal provides for increased penalties, but there is still no consensus on the dosage.

Currently, for example, the Penal Code provides for a sentence of four to eight years in prison for anyone who “attempts, using violence or serious threat, to abolish the Democratic State of Law”.

The main proposals of the “Democracy Package” are:

• increase penalties for crimes against the “democratic order”;
• federalize security in the central region of Brasília, with the creation of a National Guard; and
• criminalize posts that incite violence against institutions on the internet, with the accountability of internet platforms that do not take down anti-democratic publications.

With information from Revista Oeste