Brazil Judges Hold Social Media Platforms Liable for Illegal Content

Brazil's Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that digital platforms must act immediately to remove hate speech and content that promotes serious crimes, in a key ruling on the liability of Big Tech for illegal posts. Brazil, where a Supreme Court judge famously took Elon Musk's X offline last year for 40 days over disinformation, has gone further than any other Latin American country in clamping down on questionable or illegal social media posts. Thursday's ruling makes social media platforms' liable for third-party content deemed illegal, even without a court order. Eight of the eleven judges ruled than an article of the 2014 Internet Civil Framework, which holds that the platforms are liable for questionable content only if they refuse to comply with a court order to remove it, was partially unconstitutional. A majority of judges ruled that platforms must act "immediately" to remove content that promotes anti-democratic actions, terrorism, hate speech, child pornography, and other serious crimes.

For other types of illegal content, companies may be held liable for damages if they fail to remove it after it is flagged up by a third party. The ruling is likely to deepen the tensions between the Supreme Court on one hand, and the technology companies who accuse Brazil of censorship. "We preserve freedom of expression as much as possible, without, however, allowing the world to fall into an abyss of incivility, legitimizing hate speech or crimes indiscriminately committed online," the court's president, Justice Luis Roberto Barroso, wrote. Justice Kassio Nunes, one of the three dissenting judges, argued however that "civil liability rests primarily with those who caused the harm" and not with the platforms.