The vote of parliamentarians ended in 249 to 207
The Chamber of Deputies rejected by 249 to 207 the urgency regime for voting on PL2630, known as the Fake News PL. With that, from now on, deputies will not be able to analyze the merits of the proposal in plenary. For this, it will be necessary to approve another urgent request or wait for the analysis of the project by a special commission, yet to be created.
The project, whose original proposal was to create measures to combat the spread of disinformation on social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, and on messaging services such as WhatsApp and Telegram, divided the communication market.
On the one hand, big techs like Meta, Google and Twitter criticized the PL. In a letter, they stated that the approval of the text would represent a “threat to digital advertising” and that the text, as it was, had little to do with the initial objective, the fight against fake news.
“In fact, the text, which became known as the Fake News PL, came to represent a potential threat to the free, democratic and open Internet that we know today and that transforms the lives of Brazilians every day,” they wrote.
The positioning was also accompanied by advertising campaigns. Facebook launched an action on the impact of the PL’s approval on small businesses. Reinforcing the message of the letter, the network argued, for example, that PL should fight fake news, “not the cafeteria in your neighborhood”.
And in recent days, while news of the bill’s vote was being circulated, Google launched an action that featured the phrase “Learn how Bill 2630 can force Google to fund fake news”, right below the search engine.
The campaign was criticized by the bill’s rapporteur in the Chamber, deputy Orlando Silva, and also by the National Association of Newspapers (ANJ), which is on the opposite side of the technology companies.
In a letter signed by the entity and other partners that make up the Freedom Coalition with Responsibility, such as Abap (Brazilian Association of Advertising Agencies), Abert (Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters), the group asked for approval of the text.
According to the entities, the new version of PL 2630 reflected the maturity of discussions on the subject. They took the opportunity to criticize the resistance of the technology giants and claim that the statement that the PL would ban services and digital advertising was “clear misinformation”.
“…unlike that propagated by digital giants, the project will not end digital advertising. On the contrary, it will increase transparency about ads and boosts, which often fund disinformation and hate speech.”