MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Meta tells Brazil end of fact-checking limited to the US

Meta's new policies need to conform to Brazilian legislation

The end of the fact-checking service provided by Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp owning Meta has only been implemented in the United States (US), at least for the time being. The company made those remarks to Brazil's Federal Attorney General's Office (AGU) checking the company's compliance to the legislation in force in the South American country.

“At the moment, this change will only be applied in the United States. We plan to create, test, and improve Community Notes in the United States before any expansion to other countries,” Meta said while admitting its intentions to expand the veracity controls to other countries.

Since 2016, Meta has offered a fact-checking service on Facebook and Instagram, carried out by journalists and experts in around 115 countries, which ascertained whether information circulating on the networks was true or false and offered context to users.

With the end of fact-checking, Meta adopted a “community notes” policy. As a result, only previously registered users can challenge any information circulating on the platforms.

While claiming to protect human rights and the safety of vulnerable groups in the document sent to the AGU, Meta defended changes to its hate speech policy, which now allows prejudiced insults against women, immigrants, and homosexuals. The company confirmed that these changes are already in force in Brazil.

“These updates seek to simplify the content of the policy in order to allow for broader debate and conversation on topics that are part of ongoing discussions in society,” the company explained, claiming that the policy previously in force had limited “legitimate political debate and often impeded the free expression we intend to enable.”

In this regard, the AGU pointed out that the confirmation of the change to the policy on hate speech in Brazil causes serious concern because “it may represent fertile ground for violating legislation and constitutional precepts that protect the fundamental rights of Brazilian citizens”, adding that the changes informed by Meta “are not adequate to Brazilian legislation and are not sufficient to protect fundamental rights”.

The AGU also pointed out that Meta's new position contradicts the company's defense during the trial on the Marco Civil da Internet at the Federal Supreme Court (STF). “In such demonstrations, representatives of the company assured that the content governance policies in place were sufficient to protect the fundamental rights of users.”

The AGU will hold a public hearing on Thursday to discuss with government bodies and civil society organizations the actions to be taken to deal with the issue of social networks following the changes announced by Meta.

“The hearing will discuss the effects of the new policy implemented by the Meta, the duty of care of digital platforms, the risks of replacing the Fact Verification Program abroad and the measures to be adopted in order to ensure compliance with national legislation and the protection of rights,” says the AGU statement.

Last week, Meta announced a series of changes and the alignment of the company's policy with the government agenda of US President-elect Donald Trump, who advocates deregulation of the digital environment and is opposed to the fact-checking policy. Meta then opened up the possibility of prejudiced offenses on its platforms.

(Source: Agencia Brasil)