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Wednesday morning, Facebook officials announced the removal of the 196-page social network and 87 political profiles, mainly related to the right. The list of users contacted was not disclosed by the company, but several of the relevant pages were related to Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL). The right-wing activist group has significantly participated in the protests following the dismissal of ex-president Dilma Rousseff (PT) in 2016.
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In a statement released today, Facebook claims that the removal of content is "part of our ongoing efforts to prevent abuse", and that the company acted after an "investigation rigorous ". The removed pages and profiles "would be part of a coordinated network concealed by the use of fake Facebook accounts, and would hide the nature and source of people's content, with the goal of generating divisions and spreading misinformation.
Following the trial, MBL launched a campaign against the measure on various social networks – including Facebook itself and WhatsApp, which also belongs to the American society.
Throughout the day, MBL's Facebook page is dedicated to denouncing Facebook's alleged "censorship" | Image: Reproduction / Facebook
"It's a coordinated action, they censor in layers, completely Orwellian," writes one of the coordinators of the movement in a message to BBC News Brazil by WhatsApp. The reference is to the British writer George Orwell (1903-1950). In the 1984 book, Orwell describes a totalitarian society in which citizens are controlled by a mixture of propaganda, historical revisionism, vigilance and censorship.
Throughout Wednesday, the summit of the movement began to explore ways to respond to what they view as a Facebook attack. Politicians sympathizing with the group at the National Congress were fired to reject the measure and the group is studying the possibility of suing Facebook, in addition to considering protests. At the same time, Ailton Benedito, a lawyer in Goiás, asked the company for the list of pages and profiles removed.
The MBL summit also took a safety step today: the group's national coordinators began using the Telegram, a Russian-originated email application considered an alternative to the popular WhatsApp. Does this one belong to Facebook? "I do not trust (at WhatsApp)," said a coordinator.
Telegram notifications show the entry of Advisor Fernando Holliday (DEM-SP) and Renan Santos, both leaders of the MBL
In the political world, Facebook's measure was celebrated by representatives of the left. The candidate of the PSOL to the Presidency of the Republic, Guilherme Boulos, clbadified the MBL as "criminal network of slander and false news ". "Now we have to investigate who funded and funded this clbad," he wrote on Twitter. Also on Twitter, Senator Humberto Costa (PT-PE) said that the MBL "was intercepted by Facebook for maintaining a network of fake pages and accounts in order to spread lies".
The Facebook statement is signed by Nathaniel Gleicher, identified as the leader in cybersecurity of the company. "We only act on pages and profiles that have directly violated our rules, but we will continue to warn of this type of abuse and others, and remove any additional content identified as harmful." to the rules, "the statement added.
One of the coordinators of the MBL, Pedro D 'Eyrot, says that Facebook promotes "a crusade" against the group. "What we have now, it's a foreign company that ingests in Brazilian politics, under the pretext of trying to protect the (false news) elections," he says. "From the moment they start to act politically, the conversation (with the company) is another," he says.
In March of this year, the O Globo newspaper published a report indicating the alleged link of the MBL with the Political Skepticism page, which, at the time, revealed the position of a connecting Carioca judge the badbadinated adviser Marielle Franco (PSOL) to drug trafficking in Rio de Janeiro. The MBL denies the link to the page – which was canceled on Wednesday.
What is MBL's reaction against Facebook?
The group is planning a demonstration against Facebook in the coming days. He should also file lawsuits against the company – the argument is that Facebook would have violated Article 14 of the Consumer Protection Code, as some of the removed pages had money applied to increase (increase visibility) their publications.
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Some of the overthrown pages have received money to expand their reach, argues the MBL
Throughout Wednesday, the group lobbied right-wing members of Congress to denounce the alleged "censorship" of Facebook – MP Jerônimo Goergen (PP-RS) even said that he would study the possibility to collect signatures. with the goal of creating a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (PIC) in the House.
"I believe that the best environment for these clarifications is in Congress, with the installation of an IPC A company with the size and reach of Facebook can influence the decision-making of voters", said the MP. Mr Goergen pointed out that a possible collection of signatures could only take place after the end of the parliamentary holidays.
At another time, the lawyer of the Republic of Goiás Ailton Benedito asked the social network to submit within 48 hours the list of pages removed and a justification for the withdrawal of each one of them . Ailton said the request is to obtain data for another ongoing investigation, which aims to determine if Facebook "imposes discriminatory censorship on the Brazilian user".
According to Ailton, who currently heads the MPF in Goiás, the goal is to protect "the constitutional right to freedom of information and opinion".
"The fact that it is a private company does not exclude the obligation to provide this information. As an application provider internet, it must comply with the Civil Internet Framework. "The internet is a service of social and public nature," argues the prosecutor.
Which pages have been deleted?
On Wednesday morning, Facebook extracted aerial pages related to MBL cells from São José dos Campos (SP) and Taubaté (SP). He also removed pages of activists such as Renato Battista and Thomaz Henrique Barbosa. Another page removed was that of Movimento Brasil 200, a campaign for entrepreneurs for the freedom of the market led by Flávio Rocha, owner of the chain of Riachuelo stores. By mid-July, Rocha was a PRB presidential candidate, with the support of the MBL.
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Businessman Flávio Rocha in an act of the MBL in São Paulo in April of this year
On Twitter, Rocha said that the exclusion of the page was "unacceptable" and "violence". "I call on the Brazilian Congress 200 to the National Congress to take a stand on this arbitrary, even at the time of the military dictatorship," he wrote.
The pages maintained by supporters of presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro (PSL) were also removed, but not official profiles related to the reserve captain.
This is not the first time that MBL has complained about having its content deleted by Facebook. In early July, the social network twice dropped a popular page of political memes, the Brazilian Corruption Memes (CBM) – the page featured humorous content, ideologically badociated with the right, and most of its directors came from members of the MBL. The page had more than a million followers.
* Rafael Barifouse, of BBC News Brasil, collaborated in São Paulo
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