Tech giants accuse electoral high court president Alexandre de Moraes’ behavior as ‘pre-censorship’

Lawyers representing the country’s leading social networks – Twitter, Telegram, Tik Tok, Google, and Meta – have appealed the decisions of Justice Alexandre de Moraes to Brazil’s Supreme Court (STF), citing “pre-censorship.”

The representatives claim that the Moraes’ determinations promote general censorship of content that is often lawful.

They, therefore, demand that the Court’s decisions clearly state what content is considered illegal.

This is to avoid blocking entire pages.

The lawyers are clear that removing posts that do not harm institutions or reflect fake news cannot generally be ordered and that preventing the publication of new content is “pre-censorship.”

OBJECTION TO BLOCKING

The demonstration came as part of an appeal by social network lawyers to the STF asking it to unblock the profiles and channels of the leftist acronym PCO (Partido da Causa Operária), which the TSE president blocked in June.

The virtual plenary session began on Nov. 4 and ended on Friday, Nov. 11. By majority, the ministers rejected the request.

Moraes rejected the appeals with the legal argument that the companies had not presented “minimum arguments to remove the obstacles mentioned in his decision.”

The other Justices, except Kassio Nunes Marques and André Mendonça, joined this agreement.

Although she joined Moraes’ vote, STF President Minister Rosa Weber argued that the issue of completely blocking profiles on social networks would be dealt with at another time during the physical plenary session.

“The relevant constitutional issue raised by the plaintiff requires in-depth consideration and discussion within the framework of the Supreme Court,” Weber said.

“It is a delicate issue with points of friction between constitutional values that are on a collision course that is not yet ripe enough to obtain a final resolution for this House in this particular precautionary proceeding that is now under the electronic procedure,” the Secretary said.

Kassio Nunes Marques , in his vote against Moraes’ decision, said that “social networks serve as a tool or instrument for the preservation of democracy and the open and direct dialogue of society.

“Without them, we risk moving away from freedom of expression and thought, values that this Supreme Court should protect,” he said.

Mendonca, who also voted to lift the block, noted that removing content from the Internet is a matter of “naming each piece of illegal content to exclude that particular post or video on a case-by-case basis.”

With information from JMNoticia

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