Speaker of cases on fake news and anti-democratic acts in the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Minister Alexandre de Moraes defended this Monday 13 the regulation of the enhancement and monetization of content on the Internet, as well as the transparency of algorithms in social networks. The goal is to involve bigtech, large technology companies, in an attempt to prevent the spread of fake news and attacks on democratic institutions.
Moraes spoke at the seminar “Freedom of expression, social networks and democracy”, organized this Monday by Rede Globo, the Brazilian Institute of Teaching, Development and Research (IDP) and the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) at the headquarters of the Foundation, in the South Zone of Rio.
The magistrate has repeatedly evoked the responsibility of these companies and guaranteed that the country will not allow social networks to be treated as “land without law”. “If you’ve promoted (content), you have to be responsible because you’re making money. To direct and promote the information, you have to control it,” Moraes said.
“We don’t need to define what fake news is or that all information is controlled by platforms, but we can demand that these platforms have accountability and greater transparency in the use of algorithms so that any platform is no longer something inert. With that we would make a huge quantum leap in changing the corporate and management structure of bigtechs,” he continued.
He argued that big tech companies that own social networks and search engines apply control tactics to child pornography and pedophilia to limit undemocratic content. According to the minister, up to 93% of inappropriate content in the first case is blocked by algorithms, and what passes, in case of doubt, is filtered by a team dedicated to the function.
Moraes suggested that social networks can regulate themselves, with the judiciary acting by defining prerequisites and criteria of accountability.
extreme right
In the speech, Moraes analyzed at length the process of spreading fake news. Right at the beginning of his speech he made a mea culpa, saying that the country’s institutions had been alerted up to six years ago, but had not taken action.
“We ignored the warnings from society four, five, six years ago. We all ended up thinking it was going to be something self-regulating and passing. It is not self-regulating, much less passing. It is extremely dangerous if we fail to analyze the causes, effects and reflections not only for institutional issues, but for personal issues,” Moraes said, citing cases of bullying and so-called “unsubscribes” on social networks, which cause depression and even suicide among users.
For Moraes, the basic principle for combating this scenario is to apply the rules valid in the real world to the virtual world. “The Constitution prohibits anonymity in the real and virtual world. Why can I hide behind a robot to offend and attack people? Why can I create hate offices to damage democracy in the virtual world, if, in real life, I don’t do it, why not do I have the courage and is the legislation standing by?” asked the minister.
According to him, far-right movements have taken advantage of social networks first to demoralize the press and then to attack the republic in the face of the elections.
“A very radical right realized in an extremely competent way that it was possible to manipulate this information, access to information. It began to manipulate the inner eyes, the riots, the traumas of different segments of society, to bring these people together virtually and from that to exploit them. las. Social networks and bigtechs were exploited on January 8,” he said about the attacks on Congress, the Supreme Court and Planalto.
According to the minister, the whole organization of the January 8 vandalism took place through social networks, without the slightest disguise, which could have been prevented if the big companies that control the platforms had actively taken action against the anti-democratic content.
Source: Terra
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