This Friday (2), the Brasil da Esperança coalition delivers to Big Techs a manifesto against disinformation, a document with a series of demands for concrete actions by platforms to combat fake news. The document was signed by Gleisi Hoffmann, president of Partido dos Trabalhadores. Thirty days before the elections, fake news about former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are proliferating on social media, and the response of the platforms is not enough to contain the damage, much less to reverse it.
Lula and Geraldo Alckmin’s campaign has already accumulated a series of judicial victories in the Electoral Justice against the lies of Bolsonaro and his supporters. The electoral period has been marked by an overwhelming volume of fake news complaints against Lula received daily by Verdade na Rede. The fact checking agencies have also been working very hard in order to debulk fake news against Lula – there have been over 600 fake news checked by the agencies over the last 5 months. The scenario shows the urgency of effective actions, from the platforms, to reduce the potential damage of fake news not only for Lula, but for Democracy itself.
These are some of the main demands of the manifesto against disinformation:immediate removal of content with threats to the physical integrity of users and incitement to violence; urgency in the analysis of fake news reports and guarantee of the right of response to those affected by fake news on the platforms.
The official document was sent to the 10 largest platforms and social networks in Brazil: Facebook, Instagram, Google, Youtube, Twitter, Tik Tok, Kwai, Linkedin, Whatsapp and Telegram. The campaign also launched a public manifesto, entitled “Platforms, respect Brazil!”, open for signature by the population, so that civil society can put pressure on platforms and social networks for an effective fight against lies and fake news.
Click on this link, read and sign the manifesto.
Check out the full letter below (in Portuguese):
