After completing two years in office, the government () decided to open a broader public debate on the regulation and moderation policies of social networks and platforms, amid a scenario of pressure and in which there is still much uncertainty about which strategy take.
After a response from Meta (owner of e), confirming that, with the exception of the immediate end of the checking program, the (Attorney General’s Office) called a hearing for this Wednesday (22) and opened a consultation to send suggestions .
Among the open questions is what the stance of the platforms will be from now on and – like those already announced by the CEO, in the case of Meta –, in the face of an important change in the geopolitical scenario, with the return of the presidency of the .
Internally, there are also a series of factors that influence the topic. One of these points concerns how the new president will deal with the issue —a. Another important actor is the (Federal Supreme Court), which began judging at the end of last year – and whose analysis was .
There is still no definition of which strategy will guide the federal government’s actions on the topic of regulation this year.
One possibility is that, based on the information from the hearing, the government will make a new statement to the Supreme Court. In the court action, the .
After setbacks on the issue of regulating platforms, especially after the call was buried by the president of the Chamber of Deputies, (-AL), last year, the government reaches the middle of its term without having managed to approve any proposal on the subject. , which was one of his campaign banners.
With them getting closer and closer on the horizon, in practice, this year is the last window of opportunity for us to be able, even in this administration, to move forward with this agenda – which grew in relevance after Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement about changes to the moderation policy da Meta, on the 7th, which had .
The beginning of this year was also marked by one of the main political defeats of Lula’s third term, once again placing the political debate on social media at the center of the discussion.
Within the government structure, there is still the challenge of articulation and dialogue, given the various departments that to some extent seek to act on the issue.
This Wednesday’s public hearing will be chaired by AGU and will have representatives from , Secom (Secretariat of Social Communication of the Presidency), the Ministry of Human Rights and .
It was AGU who notified Meta to provide clarification on its CEO’s announcement. The body has been operating since last year and has taken a leading role within the government on the issue of disinformation through the National Prosecutor’s Office of the Union for the Defense of Democracy.
In , there is the Secretariat for Digital Policies, while . Both played an important role in the debates about the Fake News PL, for example.
Still during the government transition, in 2022, one of the communications working group’s proposals was to start the debate on platform regulation through a public consultation in the first hundred days of government. But, after the attacks on January 8, 2023, it was decided to give an immediate answer to the question.
Initially, the Justice department, then headed by , now a Supreme Court minister, sought for the government to regulate it through a provisional measure. After criticism, we opted for (PC do B -SP), who was rapporteur for the Fake News PL, which had been in progress in the Chamber since 2020.
The project was approved as a matter of urgency, but ended up being blocked in 2023, due to intense lobbying from companies and also resistance from the opposition. But the breadth of topics included also weighed against the process.
Within the structure of the Justice department, the National Consumer Secretariat (Senacon) also stands out, which put pressure on the platforms.
The Ministry of Finance approaches the issue from an economic and competition perspective, having even opened one from this perspective at the beginning of 2024.
In terms of international debate, Secom stood out with discussions about , which held a meeting in Rio de Janeiro in November. The department also focuses on media education initiatives and combating misinformation about health.
Bruna Martins dos Santos, a governance specialist at and member of the Coalition Rights on the Network, which includes several civil society organizations involved with digital law, sees the public hearing initiative as welcome, but understands that it comes with some delay.
“I think the government was dealing with the issue as the crises happened,” she says, citing, for example, the episode of school shootings. As a result, he believes that measures focusing on more perennial solutions have been left behind.
For Paloma Rocillo, director of the Internet and Society Reference Institute (Iris), given the announcement of the Target, it would not be up to the government not to take any action. “It would demonstrate the government’s negligence towards a very compelling political fact. I think there was no field of silence,” she says.
She makes an assessment that, while in the first year of government, in 2023, there was a political lack of coordination around the digital agenda, in the second year, what was seen was the lack of breath to take a regulatory proposal forward, after the Fake News PL fails.
