Bolsonaro challenging social media content rules: another lesser of two evils case?
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has added a new element to the discussion about who should decide what you can and can’t say on social media. Bolsonaro has signed a decree that limits the power of social media firms to take down content posted by users.
The background is that Facebook, YouTube and Twitter took down his own posts about covid saying they were misleading as they promoted unproven cures for covid-19.
The main discussion about who has the right to decide about freedom of speech on social media was emphasized when social media companies blocked former US president Donald Trump from his accounts after the storming of the US Capitol in January. The social media companies blocking him all argued that his posts stimulated to more aggression and riots. The controversial posts were submitted shortly before the mob stormed the Capitol supporting Trump’s statement that he, and not Joe Biden, had actually had won the presidential election.
The Facebook’s Oversight Board, comprising external academics, politicians and journalists, after long internal discussions about what a democratically elected politician can say on a social media platform, agreed with the Facebook management’s blocking of Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram. However, the board criticized the open end of the suspension of the accounts.
The management of Facebook later clarified the rules for suspending accounts, repeated that Trump’s posts constituted a severe violation of the social media company’s rules but specified that Trump’s accounts were suspended for two years from the day after the riots at the Capitol on January 6.
The controversial discussion about the power of the giant social media companies continues.
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