Digital influencer and former candidate for mayor of the capital of São Paulo Pablo Marçal was sentenced by the Court to pay R$100,000 in compensation to the chief minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, Guilherme Boulos (PSOL), for disseminating false information during the 2024 electoral campaign. At the time, both were competing for the position of mayor. 
During the campaign, Marçal associated Boulos’ image with cocaine use. Days before the first round, Marçal even presented a false report on his social networks in which he stated that his opponent had received treatment for using illicit drugs. This meant that the Electoral Court, even during the elections, order the suspension of Marçal’s profile on Instagram for having identified signs of falsehood in this document.
The case was investigated by the Federal Police, which indicted Marcal for the use and dissemination of this false report.
In the sentence handed down last Thursday (29), judge Danilo Fadel de Castro, from the 10th Civil Court of São Paulo, pointed out that “political debate, by its nature, admits acidic, blunt and even impolite criticism”, but that this does not authorize “the practice of crimes against honor, nor the fabrication and intentional dissemination of facts known to be untrue (fake news) with the aim of annihilating the reputation someone else.” According to the judge, “freedom of expression is not a safe conduct for slander and defamation”.
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In his sentence, the judge considered that Marçal “greatly exceeded the limits of civilized political debate and administrative criticism” and that he used a false medical report to fabricate “a criminal ‘reality’ to falsely attribute to the author the condition of a drug user”.
“The deceased doctor’s signature was forged. The document was manufactured with the specific intention of attributing to the author a psychiatric hospitalization for cocaine use that never occurred,” said the judge.
“This is the cold and calculated fabrication of a documentary lie to deceive the electorate and destroy the honor of his opponent. The defendant acted with intense intent, taking advantage of his vast digital reach network to increase the damage”, wrote the judge.
Wanted by Brazil AgencyBoulos and Marçal have not yet commented on the court’s decision.
