Many seasoned fact-checkers take issue with some of its provisions. Email not displaying correctly?
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** Brazil’s fact-checkers air concerns over so-called “Fake News” bill
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Brazilian Lower House of Congress, 2017 (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

While the bill was written to combat the spread of misinformation and foster a diversity of viewpoints in online news, many seasoned fact-checkers take issue with some of its provisions.

A Brazilian bill designed to contain the spread of mis- and disinformation narrowly failed an “accelerated pathway” vote Wednesday in the lower house of Congress, one of two representative voting bodies in Brazil's bicameral Congress. The future of PL 2630 — also known as the “Fake News” bill — will be determined at a later, still undetermined date.

Despite the bill's aim to contain the spread of mis- and disinformation, it faces predictable resistance from tech companies’ and, perhaps more surprisingly, independent fact-checking organizations in the region, which say they are concerned with its potential impact.

Some of the bills’ mandates include:
* Mass text-messaging would be prohibited for political purposes.
* Any foreign company would be required to have legal representation in Brazil.
* Tech companies would be required to publish reports for each instance of content demonetization and removal.
* Politicians would no longer be able to earn Brazilian Real for their posts to social media.
* YouTube would be required to pay all news operations for content on its platform.

Executives at YouTube have lamented that what “journalism” means isn’t clearly defined in the bill, and that channels would have to be notified when content gets demoted (and for what reason) — a gargantuan task given the scale of YouTube’s platform. Certain legislators in Brazil would also no longer be bound to YouTube’s service rules.

“Under this bill, members of Brazil’s legislative branch wouldn’t have to follow our Terms of Service or Community Guidelines. And every time our system demotes content for any reason, we’d have to inform similar channels, burying creators with countless notifications,” the chief business officer of YouTube, Robert Kyncl, wrote in a Twitter thread ([link removed]) .

The resistance toward the bill is shared by local fact-checking organizations.

“I believe that the section about payment for journalistic content — as it is — could be very harmful not only to fact checkers, but to journalism as a whole,” said Bernardo Barbosa, assistant editor of UOL Confere, a verified signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network,“because it does not define clearly what is journalistic content or what is a journalism company. We know by now that many outlets that spread disinformation try to look like a legitimate journalistic operation.”

“It is hard to assess what is professional journalism, and who should be able to receive such subsidies from the platforms,” said co-founder and executive director of Aos Fatos. “I think that fact-checkers could also be vulnerable to judicial abuse, because some congressmen could be angry that we are publishing something says what they’re sharing is false or misleading. It makes us vulnerable.”

Though Nalon agreed with YouTube’s general sentiment that the law could lead to additional funding for false-information disseminators, she also mentioned that some big tech companies are already sponsoring many purveyors of misinformation via ad-revenue.

“Actually we know for a fact that, in Brazil, and many other countries, Google already funds misinformation because Google ads can be on any website. We know of some websites that publish false news, they receive money from advertising through google ads,” Nalon said.

Since the accelerated voting pathway for Pl 2630/2020 was denied last week, the question remains when the vote will happen.

Interesting fact-checks

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• Suplantan al director del CNIC, Valentín Fuster, para estafar con medicamentos fraudulentos (Spanish) ([link removed])
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Quick hits
Shutterstock
From the news:
• Obama: I Underestimated the Threat of Disinformation ([link removed]) At a conversation hosted by The Atlantic and the University of Chicago, former President Barack Obama sits down with The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg to discuss the problem of disinformation. Jacob Stern, The Atlantic.
• Russian-backed hackers spreading disinformation on Facebook ([link removed]) A Belarus-affiliated hacking group called Ghostwriter is targeting Ukrainian telecom, military and energy companies. On the day of the invasion, it posted videos from legitimate Ukrainian military officers’ accounts falsely stating that Ukrainians were fleeing and surrendering. Ines Kagubare, The Hill.
• Use of social media for news doesn’t seem to increase false political beliefs among Mexicans, one study finds ([link removed]) In a study of over 1,750 Mexican respondents, researchers found that those who frequently use social media were no more likely to believe misinformation. Nieman Lab, Hanaa Tameez
• Latino-targeted misinformation and the power of corrections ([link removed]) In a paper conditionally accepted to The Journal of Politics, researchers find that fact checks are indeed effective at reducing the effects of misinformation on factual beliefs. Yamil Velez, Journal of Politics Headline
From/for the community:
•

Our Spread the Facts grant program will distribute $800,000 to distinguished IFCN-verified signatories working to curb the spread of misinformation on WhatsApp Read more here: [link removed]
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We’re also proud to announce our recipients for the Climate Misinformation Grant Program. IFCN will grant $800,000 to 10 fact-checking organizations across the globe to help curb misinformation about the climate. Meet our recipients: [link removed]
•

Experienced fact-checking organizations from around the world were granted $300,000 to develop detailed curriculums for mentee organizations. Read more here: [link removed]
•

IFCN received $800,000 from the Google News Initiative to support fact-checkers stopping the spread of harmful misinformation: [link removed]
Events and training
• Applications for mentees ([link removed]) for the Global Mentorship Program ([link removed]) are now open! Six mentor organizations will mentor up to five organizations in a variety of topics ([link removed]) , including how to use innovative formats to deliver fact-checks; video storytelling; diversifying income sources and more. All mentees who complete the mentorship program will receive $5,000. The deadline to apply for the program is April 22, 2022.
If you are a fact-checker and you’d like your work highlighted in the next edition, send us an email at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) by next Tuesday.
Any corrections? Tips? We’d love to hear from you: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .
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