A Brazilian bill designed to contain the spread of mis- and disinformation narrowly failed an “accelerated pathway” vote Wednesday in the lower house of Congress, one of two representative voting bodies in Brazil’s government. The future of PL 2630 — also known as the “Fake News” bill — is now up in the air.
Despite the bill’s aim to contain the spread of mis- and disinformation, it faces predictable resistance from tech companies and, perhaps more surprisingly, independent fact-checking organizations in the region, which say they are concerned with the bill’s potential impact.
Some of the bill’s mandates include:
Mass text-messaging would be prohibited for political purposes.
Any foreign company would be required to have legal representation in Brazil.
Tech companies would be required to publish reports for each instance of content demonetization and removal.
Politicians would no longer be able to earn Brazilian Real for their posts to social media.
YouTube would be required to pay all news operations for content on its platform.
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Source: Brazil’s fact-checkers air concerns over so-called ‘Fake News’ bill | Poynter