The rapporteur, minister Sebastião Reis Júnior, voted to maintain the fine for false data on an “unmanaged” page of the Argentine Consulate; daily punishment reached R$50 thousand
The minister, from the STJ (Superior Court of Justice), voted to maintain a fine of R$4.3 million applied to Facebook for failure to comply with a court order to hand over data from a false page attributed to the Argentine Consulate in Uruguaiana, a city in Rio Grande do Sul that borders Paso de los Libres, in Argentina. The case is judged in a virtual plenary session, scheduled to end on Wednesday (June 24, 2026).
The page improperly used the identification of a public body when presenting itself as “Consulado Argentino En Uruguayana”, without being an official page of the Argentine government. The Court understood that, as the conduct investigated had acts or results in Brazil, the case was subject to Brazilian law. Read (PDF — 174 kB)
“UNMANAGED” PAGE
The investigation was opened in 2017 to investigate the page “Consulado Argentino En Uruguayana”, created on Facebook. According to the process, the page was not official to the Argentine government.
The court had ordered Facebook to provide data linked to the page, such as the IP (Internet Protocol) used to create it, date and time of access, registration information, telephone numbers, associated emails and access records.
In March 2017, the company claimed that the user was outside Brazilian jurisdiction, in Argentina, and that he would therefore not be able to provide the data. The first instance judge in the case understood that Brazilian law applied when the crime took place or resulted in Brazil and ordered the delivery of the information under penalty of a daily fine of R$10,000.
In June 2017, the fine was increased to R$50,000 per day. In view of the non-compliance, the (Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office) requested the arrest of the updated value of the penalty, calculated in R$ 4.306.277,40.
In the appeal, Facebook stated that there was no deliberate resistance to the court order. He said that there was a delay justified by an initial mistake and that the order was impossible to comply with, because the page was “unmanaged” and there would be no creators or administrators whose data could be provided.
BRAZILIAN LAW X PLATFORM
Sebastião Reis rejected the arguments. For the minister, Facebook twice insisted on the allegation that “I would not be competent to provide the information”. The rapporteur stated that the company only presented a response considered satisfactory after 9 months of resistance.
Reis also stated that the case follows the jurisprudence of the STJ (PDF — 120 kB), according to which multinational companies operating in Brazil are subject to Brazilian laws. For the minister, there was no “mere material impossibility” not “justified delay” for Facebook to cooperate with Brazilian justice.
The judgment at the STJ takes place in parallel to the debate at the (Supreme Federal Court) and the interpretation of article 19 of the Marco Civil da Internet, which dealt with the liability of providers for content published by third parties.
Although the case at the STJ deals with the delivery of data in a criminal investigation, and not the removal of content, the discussion also involves the limits of the obligations of digital platforms operating in Brazil.
CLASS COMPOSITION
The 6th Panel of the STJ is part of the 3rd Section of the Court, responsible for judging cases of criminal law and criminal procedure.
Here is the composition of the board:
- Sebastião Reis Júnior (rapporteur);
- Rogerio Schietti Cruz;
- Carlos Pires Brandão;
- Nilsoni de Freitas, judge summoned from the TJDFT;
- And Fernandes.
