Planalto retreats in network regulation and concentrates project efforts for Big Techs

The Planalto Palace has given up on the bill for the regulation of social networks and decided to send to Congress only the text that provides economic rules that aimed big techs. The movement is a government decrease in the face of Congress’ political environment, hostile to the proposal, and occurs the week when President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will sanction the adultization bill.

Another assessment is that this bill, approved in the House and Senate after pressure from the Felca influencer’s video, already includes part of the points that would be addressed in the government proposal, such as protection exposure to crimes such as pedophilia and protection measures for children and adolescents.

On August 12, Lula came to announce that the government would send Congress a text with rules for its own social networks. At the time, Lula faced President Donald Trump’s onslaught against the Brazilian government, using the Network regulation by the Supreme Court as one of the justifications, and tried to surf the national repercussion of Felca’s video, which raised discussions about the early exposure of children and adolescents on social networks.

“Let’s regulate, because we need to create the minimum behavior, the minimum procedure in the operation of a digital network that speaks to children and adults and that often no one assumes responsibility for the content,” said Lula.

The proposal sewn between the Ministry of Justice and the Secretariat of Social Communication (Secom) provided for platforms to remove, without a court order, publications that would attack democracy and promote other crimes, such as terrorism, murders and those who have children and adolescents.

Also according to this PL, it would be up to the platforms to maintain an inspection so that their systems are able to protect children and adolescents, with compulsory prevention measures. If this were breached, there would be scaled punishments: warning, fine and, in repeated cases, 30 -day provider suspension, extendable for another 30.

This is the second time that the Planalto Palace has decided to retreat about the text under elaboration for six months. The first time, he held the proposal until the Federal Supreme Court judged, in June, Article 19 of the Internet Civil Mark. By eight votes to three, the Court has decided that the article is unconstitutional and that networks must be held responsible for illicit content published by users. After the Supreme’s decision, the government prepared a project aligned with the court’s understanding.

In the text, the government even made Congress to the objective of facilitating the processing and avoid criticism of the opposition, which presents itself against legislation that move in the dynamics of the big techs with the discourse of “defense of freedom of expression”. All crimes against honor, such as injury, slander and defamation, will only be removed from publications on social networks by court order.

The bill that deals with the economic regulation of Big Techs will have more rigid rules for companies that have annual revenues of over R $ 5 billion in Brazil and R $ 50 billion in global terms. Proposed by the Ministry of Finance and finalized in the Planalto Palace, the text provides that large companies will have among its obligations to disclose users of their criteria for ranking and displaying product offerings, including search results. From the new rules, companies will be prohibited from practices that limit or prevent the participation of competitors in markets in which they operate.

The measure provides for a daily fine of R $ 20,000 to platforms considered relevant that they fail to keep office in the country within the period established by Cade. The amount may be extended up to fifty times to ensure the effectiveness of the penalty due to the economic situation of the offending company.