Google has drawn the ire of Brazil’s government and public prosecutors after publicly lobbying against legislation aimed at curbing the spread of “fake news”. The company, which is among several in Big Tech that oppose the bill, had promoted an article on its homepage entitled “This bill will make your internet worse”. Justice minister Flávio Dino said he had asked antitrust regulators to investigate potential “abusive practices” by the tech group, while public prosecutors in the state of São Paulo demanded an official explanation. Read More...
Reuters
Brazil pushes back on big tech firms’ campaign against ‘fake news law’
Bill 2630, also known as the Fake News Law, puts the onus on the internet companies, search engines and social messaging services to find and report illegal material, instead of leaving it to the courts, charging hefty fines for failures to do so. Tech firms have been campaigning against the bill, including Google LLC which had added a link on its search engine in Brazil connecting to blogs against the bill and asking users to lobby their representatives. Justice Minister Flavio Dino ordered Google to change the link on Tuesday, saying the company had two hours after notification or would face fines of one million reais ($198,000) per hour if it did not.
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