Welcome to this week's news round-up on the Brazilian innovation and technology ecosystem. Here is a selection of five key developments in Latin America's largest economy during the week ending June, 5, 2020:
Brazil's senate will be voting an anti-fake news bill next week
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Senate fake news vote delayed
Brazil's senate was due to vote an anti-fake news bill this Tuesday, however that has been postponed until next week amid controversy over the potential ramifications of the proposal. According to senate president Davi Alcolumbre, the postponement is intended to ensure that the bill receives input from all senators.
The proposal is intended to ensure integrity of communication across online platforms and discourage manipulation as well as mass dissemination of false content. It establishes that information providers - including social media firms such as Twitter and Facebook - must face sanctions if they fail to carry out actions such as labelling bots and removing misleading content, as well as highlighting corrections performed by independent fact-checkers.
While the proposal is seen as generally positive, entities such as the Internet Steering Committee are calling for a wider industry debate before the vote and experts have expressed concerns about parts of the bill, particularly when it comes to content moderation. Supporters of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who alongside his sons has been linked to an online fake news organization, see the attempts to tackle disinformation as an attempt to introduce censorship.
One of the authors of the proposal, senator Alessandro Vieira, denied the claims, arguing that the project does not damage freedom of expression - rather, it is about holding social media companies accountable regarding fake news, transparency over bot activity and restrictions around automated dissemination of content.
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