Brazil announces new social media curbs over school violence content

Brazil announces new social media curbs over school violence content

Platforms that don’t comply could also be fined as much as $2.4 million and presumably have their websites suspended by federal authorities, says Justice Minister Flavio Dino.

Officials say websites will be ordered to take steps to ban content and users who
Officials say web sites can be ordered to take steps to ban content material and customers who “are promoting or supporting attacks or violence against schools.”
(Reuters Archive)

Brazil’s authorities has introduced new restrictions on social media, aiming to curb an “epidemic” of violent college assaults one week after a hatchet-wielding assailant killed 4 youngsters.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s Justice Minister, Flavio Dino, stated that on Wednesday web sites can be ordered to take steps to ban content material and customers who “are promoting or supporting attacks or violence against schools.”

Social media corporations will even be required to ship knowledge to police on all customers sharing violent content material, and block customers who’ve been banned for sharing violent content material from creating new profiles.

Platforms that don’t comply could also be fined as much as $2.4 million and presumably have their websites suspended by federal authorities, the minister stated.

“If there is no compliance, the process to apply sanctions will go ahead,” Dino informed a press convention, including that the brand new measures are in step with nationwide regulation.

Last Wednesday 4 youngsters between 4 and 7 years outdated had been killed in a preschool in Blumenau, a metropolis in southern Santa Catarina state, when a person carrying a hatchet stormed the power.

The murders shocked the South American nation, the place two different assaults on faculties — neither with fatalities — occurred on Monday and Tuesday.

“There is an emergency situation which has generated an epidemic of attacks, threats of attacks (and) panic among families and in schools,” stated Dino, who vowed a “close regulation” of social media in an effort to include the threats.

‘Crisis scenario’

In March, Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google appeared earlier than Brazil’s Supreme Court to defend the regulation, whereas the federal government seems to increase regulation over social networks.

Dino stated Brazil’s client secretariat would instantly begin figuring out every firm’s accountability in proactively regulating dangerous content material to college students.

In view of the “crisis situation,” Dino stated the secretariat would ask the platforms to report on adopted measures and protocols.

On social media websites and in teams on messaging providers corresponding to WhatsApp, customers have speculated about potential new violence anticipated in Brazil on April 20, the anniversary of a 1999 bloodbath within the US state of Colorado, the place shooters slaughtered 12 fellow college students and a trainer in Columbine High School.

According to Brazil’s justice minister, federal authorities are recommending state and native police reinforce their patrols within the coming days, given the circulation of posts relating to April 20.

The federal prosecutor’s workplace, in the meantime, requested Twitter on Tuesday to reveal measures the social media large is taking to cut back content material associated to inciting violence in opposition to faculties.

Source: TRTWorld and companies

Source: www.trtworld.com