The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) determined the exclusion of at least 334 posts on social networks, alleging false content, since the beginning of the pre-campaign this year. Survey made by Estadão shows that decisions by court ministers ordered the removal of content from digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, WhatsApp, Tiktok, Kwai and Gettr, the latter popular among supporters of far-right ideologies because it does not contain content moderation tools .
In total, 43 decisions were issued whose main target was publications made by the campaign of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and his allies in the electoral dispute.
Some TSE decisions containing content removal orders have been questioned by civil society entities for, according to them, excessively intervening in the political field and freedom of expression. Recently, the National Association of Newspapers (ANJ) and the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) condemned the Court’s decision that determined the withdrawal of 31 publications that associated the PT candidate with the Planalto Palace, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to the Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega.
In the list of removals is a post from the Paraná newspaper Gazeta do Povo. The ANJ even classified the court’s measure as “censorship” and Abraji said that it is not healthy for democracy to put “the Judiciary in the position of deciding what a journalistic vehicle can or cannot publish”.
In another case, the Electoral Court ordered the news website O Antagonista to remove a text in which Lula was accused of having links with drug trafficker Marcola, who serves as the head of the criminal organization Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC).
excesses
For David Nemer, professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia (USA), the manifestation of associations such as Abraji, in the case of Gazeta do Povo – which posted on social networks linking Lula to Ortega – highlights possible “excesses” in the performance of the TSE.
“One way to mitigate this is for the TSE to engage in conversation with newspaper and press associations. Social networks are not understood as companies of common good, unlike how the press is seen. Actions against the press need to be viewed with great caution,” said the author of the book Tecnologia do Oprimido.
Swing
Since July, the TSE has received 129 representations with complaints of the dissemination of fake news against the presidential candidates, which corresponds to the opening of more than one process per day in the last three months. Not all requests, however, resulted in decisions to take down content that campaigns found offensive. Ministers denied exclusion in 58 cases. In another 29 cases, the Court did not even consider the merits of the requests.
In the actions taken by Lula’s campaign, the most frequent target were publications made by Bolsonaro and his closest allies, such as elected deputies Eduardo Bolsonaro (PL-SP), Carla Zambelli (PL-SP) and Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG) , Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) and former minister Damares Alves (Republicans-DF), elected to the Senate. The PT candidacy also targeted publications by digital influencers or ordinary users of the networks.
One of these actions in which Lula managed to remove the fake news shared by opponents was against Flávio Bolsonaro and the deputies Otoni de Paula (MDB-RJ) and Hélio Lopes (PL-RJ), who accused the PT of maintaining relations with leaders of the faction. criminal PCC and ministers of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), with the aim of applying a “million-dollar coup” in case the PT candidate wins on October 30th. Another post said that Lula was associated with the STF “to kill” Bolsonaro.
In another action, the federation composed of PT, PCdoB and PV obtained a decision that forced the removal of publications by Damares Alves with false allegations that the governments of the former PT president had distributed booklets to teach young people to smoke crack.
Bolsonaro’s campaign, in turn, managed to take down videos in which Lula calls him “genocidal”, as well as the PT’s propaganda that compiles old statements with Bolsonaro’s speeches about torture, denial of the purchase of vaccines and the offenses against women. women. The day before yesterday, the TSE prevented PT members from using a video that associates Bolsonaro with cannibalism. PT propaganda used an old interview with the current president of the Republic, highlighting phrases considered out of context.
Actions
The TSE has only four permanent ministers dedicated to judging electoral propaganda. In early August, the President of the Court, Alexandre de Moraes, appointed Cármen Lúcia, Maria Claudia Bucchianeri, Raúl Araújo and Paulo de Tarso Sanseverino to handle these cases. In addition to actions involving fake news, ministers still need to analyze hundreds of requests for the right of reply, accusations of defamation and alleged irregularities in the campaigns.
Lawyer Angela Cignachi, from the Brazilian Academy of Electoral and Political Law (Abradep), highlighted that judicial intervention does not have the ability to reverse all the damage caused by fake news to the image of a candidate.
“Although these decisions have been made and content has been taken down, we know that there is no technological means to remove that video or content from everywhere it spreads, which makes the effectiveness of these measures very limited. The damage to those who are affected by false or decontextualized news that affects honor is very great”, argued the lawyer.
The information is from the newspaper. The State of São Paulo.
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