MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil's Electoral Court and Spotify join forces against disinformation

The TSE also launched its own channel on the platform

Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) Chief Justice Edson Fachin Thursday announced an agreement had been reached with the streaming audio platform Spotify to combat disinformation ahead of this year's presidential elections.

As per the agreement, Spotify will help identify pages with fake news and will also redirect users to the Electoral Justice webpage to seek reliable data from official sources.

Fachin explained that the partnership, which will be effective until Dec. 31, 2022, will help combat the harmful impacts of fake news and thus disseminate reliable and official content about the 2022 elections.

The agreement also provides that the TSE and the regional electoral courts (TREs) will have an exclusive communication channel with the company to point out content with possible fake news to be analyzed.

The TSE also pledged to provide information and reports on the development of elections that are important to Spotify.

Fachin said that the production and dissemination of false and fraudulent information can represent a risk to society and democracy, besides negatively affecting the voter's ability to exercise a conscious vote.

“The partnership between the electoral Justice and this streaming platform is the result of a continuous search to curb the proliferation of so-called fake news, which aims to tarnish the legitimacy of the electoral process and the ability of voters to exercise a conscious vote,” said the judge. “This is one more step by the Electoral Justice to promote peace and security in elections,” he added.

Fachin also announced the launch of the TSE's own profile on Spotify. The podcast Everybody Wants to Know, available for free, brings together a series of interviews with digital electoral law professor Diogo Rais.

(Source: Agencia Brasil)