on id verification and the global south: the case of the brazilian law
i keep seeing people approach brazilian law for internet regulation as if it is the same as the usamerican efforts and uk law about id verification. as a friend said 'once again, the internet skews american' and it leaves me feeling othered and infantilized by people who do not consider nuance at all about politics. so let's talk about it, shall we
1. the aim of the uk law:
The Online Safety Act 2023 (the Act) is a new set of laws that protects children and adults online. It puts a range of new duties on social media companies and search services, making them more responsible for their users’ safety on their platforms. The Act will give providers new duties to implement systems and processes to reduce risks their services are used for illegal activity, and to take down illegal content when it does appear. The strongest protections in the Act have been designed for children. Platforms will be required to prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content and provide parents and children with clear and accessible ways to report problems online when they do arise. The Act will also protect adult users, ensuring that major platforms will need to be more transparent about which kinds of potentially harmful content they allow, and give people more control over the types of content they want to see. (source and more info)
2. the aim of the brazilian law:
The "Lei Felca" or Brazil's Digital Statute of the Child and Adolescent (ECA Digital) aims to increase protections for minors under 18 in the digital platforms, social media and such through implementing strict rules on online platforms, tech companies, and video games. (the full law in br portuguese)
here we can point out the obvious. brazilian law is not aimed at adults in online spaces. which forces us to consider the question: so why i, an adult no longer affected by child andadolescent protections online or otherwise, am being forced to verify my age?
because self-declaration of age is no longer considered a reliable type of verification in brazil. and brazil is punishing the companies like meta, x and etc for any violations.
there is no aiming at restricting adults in online spaces within brazilian law. this was the chosen approach of most tech companies when faced with the possibility of being sancationed (warning for correcting the issue, fine of 50 millions per infraction, suespension of activities and being banned from activities in the country) for letting minors produce and be exposed to content that is not appropriated for children and minors in general.
3. innappropiate content and censorship:
the brazilian law considers as innappropiate content for minors any form of pornographic materials or anything illegal in brazil such as gambling. it also limits monetization of some videos and forbids monetization of any sort of video or picture with minors in eroticized or sexually content and contexts with minors. all this discussion was sparked once again in brazil because of a video posted by brazilian influencer felca (you can watch this here). the video is called adultização/adultization and it discusses minors being explored by adults in their lives for monetary gain through internet videos. it also discusses how easily the algorithms suggest minor content for people and how pedophiles communicate about it in the comments of those contents. the video went viral in brazil and there was a push for the government and authorites to do something about virtual crimes.
brazilian constitution does no include an absolute right to freedom of expression/freedom of speech. this means that while the right to freedom of expression/speech is very much a constitutional right in brazil, the anonymous nature of that expression is not a right at all. you have a right to speak your mind without censorship, but you have a duty to answer for those opinions if they go against the law and there is no anon mask that says the government cannot know who said what if it breaks the law. you commit a crime by speaking your thoughts, you answer for it (an example of this is that if you say racist/homophobic/transphobic/nazi apologetic stuff, the law can punish you for that. in fact, it is expected that the law will punish you for it and a great source of frustration when it falls short of that. if you say it online hoping for the protection of social media anonimity to keep you safe, the law can still very much find and punish you for it). (the brazilian law on freedom of speech can he found here)
4. but it's not perfect!
it surely isn't. the law was implemented in a broad and far too clumsy way. a lot of people are pointing out the issues that it can cause (self-censoring, constant fear of content take down from malicious reports and so on). most of the issues come not from the law itself but the way the companies are going about implementing this law in brazil.
the loudest complaints do not come from that place of concern right now. conservatives aka as brazilian far-right are claiming this law will be used for political persecution.
i'm going to assume most of you do not know much about brazilian far-right other than they suck up to trump and netanyahu big time. a lot of them claim we are living in a left-wing dictatorship because the elected president was not their candidate of choice. a lot of them are also claiming we are living in judicial dictatorship because the very same surpreme court justice who prevented cheating in the past election was assigned to trial bolsonaro (aka the tropical trump) for planning and attempting a coup after losing the past presidential election. there is a very clear and loud attempt by far-right politicians and influencers in brazil (and some of those are not even living in brazil anymore but in places like usa or, in this one lady's case, in a prison in italy) to paint this picture of constant political persecution.
anything they do that is faced with resistance or concern is labeled as persecutory which became particularly clear in the discussion that happened in brazil about a law against misogny. the far-right push against that law project used the argument that if it became law, no men would be safe to ever talk to a woman again.
in both cases, the discussion moves away from clear protections for groups in need of said protections and becomes a project of persecuting the innocent people who could be included in the group doing the harm.
far from saying all politicians have good intentions, the point here is to say that while you may criticize this approach in a country with the goal to protect trans people there, for example, you cannot simply use that same approach in another country by siding with the very people who take issue with trans people even existing. nuance is key. informaing yourselff properly before advocating for things is key.
5. tl:dr
global south problems are not the same as the one faced by the developed countries.
think and educate yourself before approaching all topics from an american/european point of view. the american experience is not universal. the european experience is not universal either.
inform yourself about who you are siding with before going full critical on an issue in a country you are not familiar with.
it's okay to not know what you are talking about. if you don't want to learn about it, that's your choice. but do not make your lack of information an issue for other people.
