Content removal on the internet as an electoral strategy in Brazilian democracy: threats to freedom of expression in the institution of governmental controls

• Autor(a) principal: Martins, Marcel Hofling
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Farah, Rafael Mott, Toledo, Gabriel Single
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Estudos Empíricos em Direito
• Texto Completo: https://reedrevista.org/reed/article/view/398
• topic: Freedom of expression; Internet; Elections; Fake News; Disinformation; Liberdade de Expressão; Internet; Eleições; Fake News; Desinformação

Objective: to analyze the correlation between the oncoming of electoral periods in Brazil and judicial requests for content removal on the Internet. Methodology: data from judicial claims and from transparency reports of content providers by the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) statistical method, obtaining pure partial correlations between months before the elections and removal requests at a significance level of 1%. Results: positive correlation with an increase of, on average, 42.05 in July, 120.05 in August, 230.25 in September and 65.25 in October. Discussion: There is a concern of the Brazilian politicians with the repercussion that the information on the Internet will have for the results of the elections. Although most of the removal requests (3,885, 77.2%) are based on the defamation argument, the temporal coincidence suggests that the proceedings are related to the electoral process as a whole and not only to the individual protection of the honor or image of the candidates. Limitations: There are few reporting periods available, there is a lack of objectivity in the classification of motivations, and there is no specific category for political removals in content provider reports. Conclusions: The evidence of the use of removal requests as an electoral strategy reveals the need for greater transparency by public authorities about the contents removed as well as the reasons for these withdrawals of information from the Internet.