By Catarina Demony
LISBON (Reuters) -The minister of the Federal Supreme Court and president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Alexandre de Moraes, said this Friday that the TSE intends to submit a proposal to Congress to regulate social networks, seeking to combat the which he pointed to as a capture of the platforms by “extreme right-wing populists”.
“We adopted several measures that we will now take, from a commission set up in the Superior Electoral Court, to the National Congress mechanisms for regulating social networks,” said Moraes at a business conference organized by Lide, a group founded by former governor of São Paulo João Doria, in Lisbon.
Moraes, who participated in the event via videoconference, also said that there is a need for national and international instruments to hold accountable authorities that “attack democracy from within” and to combat the “international trafficking of ideas against democracy”.
“We need to strengthen for the future. And this strengthening is not a strengthening that should be carried out only in the internal legislation of a country. We need to analyze… international legislation to defend democracy, defend the rule of law and institutions”, added Moraes.
Moraes argued, for example, that social networking platforms are no longer considered technology companies and are now seen by law as media companies, thus being able to be held responsible for what they publish.
“What is defended is that social media cease to be considered technology companies… and start to be considered or have the same responsibility as (traditional) media companies”, he said.
“Accountability for abuses in disclosure, the transmission of fraudulent news and hate speech cannot be greater, but it cannot be less than that of other traditional media.”
The minister also said that anyone who has the courage to publish hate speech also needs to have the courage to be held accountable for it.
In recent years, social media platforms have been a tool for spreading false news and calling for anti-democratic acts, as occurred in the January 8 attacks, when vandals, radical supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, invaded and vandalized the Planalto Palace and the National Congress and STF buildings.
(Additional reporting by Fernando Cardoso in São Paulo; Editing by Eduardo Simões)
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