• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > Latin America

Brazil: TSE Orders Facebook To Remove 'Fake News' Smearing PT

  • Brazil's Workers Party is the target of a fake news campaign on Facebook and other social media.

    Brazil's Workers Party is the target of a fake news campaign on Facebook and other social media. | Photo: Reuters

Published 5 October 2018
Opinion

"The publication has the clear intention of distorting the conceptions of the representative candidate," said the TSE judge.

Brazilian Judge Sergio Silveira Banhos, from the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), has ordered Facebook to fake news videos targeting the Workers Party's (PT) presidential candidate Fernando Haddad.

RELATED:
Brazil: Haddad Declares 'War' On Fake News Campaign Against PT

The social media campaign on Whatsapp and Facebook intensified during the run-up to the October 7 elections.

Content has attacked the party, Fernando Haddad, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Manuela D'Avila, vice-presidential candidate for the PT and the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB).

On Wednesday, Haddad and the PT legal team denounced the campaign to the TSE, and Judge Banhos accepted the request to remove videos and other content containing fake news.

Among the fake news spread by the campaign is the claim that Haddad will distribute baby bottles in kindergartens with a spout in the shape of the male genitals.

Judge Banhos has given Facebook 48 hours to identify the people behind the 'Lourdes Silva' profile, allegedly responsible for disseminating some of the fake news.

"The publication has the clear intention of distorting the conceptions of the representative candidate, disseminating manifestly untrue information about their performance before daycare centers," said the TSE judge.

The content's removal is supported by Brazil's constitution, because the information is an "offense to honor and is a substantial aggression and attack against a candidate on the Internet."

Haddad announced Wednesday the creation of the 'Zap do Lula' (Lula's Whatsapp), a tool "in the war against lies and rumors."

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.