In Brazil, Platform Regulation Takes Center Stage

Beatriz Kira is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Law & Regulation at the Department of Political Science – School of Public Policy of University College London (UCL), where she is part of the Online Speech Project. Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at a campaign appearance in Rio de Janeiro, October 20, 2022. Aline Alcantara/Shutterstock. Recently, I participated in a panel reflecting on Brazil’s President Lula’s first 100 days in office. This symbolic milestone provided an opportunity to assess the new government’s performance, and to discuss the challenges that lie ahead as it seeks to implement its agenda, which includes platform regulation. In Brazil, the issue of platform liability and content moderation has become a pressing concern after the storming of the Brazilian capital by far-right supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro on January 8, 2023. As a result of the violence that day, the Brazilian government has actively pursued measures to enhance the responsibility of intermediaries in moderating online content. The new administration had already indicated that digital governance was likely to be a priority. The appointments of the new Special Advisor for Digital Rights (Assessoria Especial de Direitos Digitais) within the Ministry of Justice and of a Secretary for Digital Policy (Secretaria de Serviços e Direitos Digitais) within the Ministry of Communications were evidence of that. But in the aftermath of the January 8 attacks on Brazil’s democratic institutions – which were immediately compared to the events of January 6, 2021 in the US – Lula’s government…In Brazil, Platform Regulation Takes Center Stage