Publicist Sidônio Palmeira, who will be the next minister of the Presidency’s Social Communication Secretariat (Secom), commented this Wednesday (8) on the changes announced by the multinational Metaa technology company that controls Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, in the operation of these social networks. Among the changes is a new content moderation policy on these platforms, which includes the end of the fact-checking program that verifies the veracity of information circulating on networks, the end of restrictions on subjects such as migration and gender, and the promotion of “civic content”, understood as information with a political-ideological content.
“This is bad for democracy. Why? Because you don’t control the proliferation of hate, misinformation, fake news. That’s the problem. And we need to have control. It is necessary to have regulation of social networks. This has to be happening in Europe, in the countries here. Why is it that in the United States, they often put TikTok out there and don’t want it? Why does China stop this? And why are we exposed to all this? That’s the question”, said the publicist to journalists, at Palácio do Planalto, this Wednesday (8) after participating in the political event in defense of democracy and in memory of the coup acts of January 8th.
Although the new Meta rules, for now, are only valid in the United States, Lula’s future minister said that it is up to countries, in a sovereign way, to establish legislation that covers the functioning of the sector, without specifying. “Now, the decision on the target is a decision made by a company. The Brazilian government and the Brazilian justice system can adopt other criteria. Of course, of course. We have an autonomous, independent country, which will take the necessary measures”, he stated.
The current secretary of Digital Policies at Secom, João Brant, had already criticized this Tuesday (7) the target announcement. According to him, the company explicitly signals that it does not accept the sovereignty of countries over the functioning of the digital environment, in anticipation of actions that will be taken by the government of Donald Trump, president-elect of the United States, who takes office on the 20th of January.
New minister
Sidônio was announced yesterday (7) as new ministerreplacing Paulo Pimenta, and should be sworn in next Tuesday (14). In the conversation with journalists, he revealed that President Lula, in the middle of his term, hopes that the Secretariat of Social Communication can effectively communicate the government’s actions to the population for the next two years.
“The government has a lot of things and the feeling I have is the following, the government’s expectations are greater than the government and the government is greater than the popular perception. The ideal, in government, is that the three [pontos] are aligned. It is our understanding. So, how to do this? There is the issue of communication, there is the issue of management and there is the issue of politics”, he observed.
