By Alexandre Veronese (Professor of University of Brasília, CitDig key external member, UMinho) and Alessandra Silveira [Editor of this blog, Coordinator of Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence “Digital Citizenship and Technological Sustainability” (CitDig), UMinho]

The dilemmas of content moderation in the European Union and Latin America: a new chapter?

            It was already known that Elon Musk’s direct participation in the presidential campaign that led to a second term for Donald Trump would have consequences for Big Tech regulation policies. However, one did not imagine that it would happen so quickly. The recent policy change by Meta – the parent company to which Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp belong – paves the way for other technology companies to seek ways to tacitly or explicitly “globalise” a broader interpretation of the concept of freedom of expression, according to the model of the United States of America.

            For Brazil – and other democracies in Latin America – that have had clashes with large digital platforms, the dilemma will increase. It is worth remembering what happened in Brazil. The social network X – former Twitter –, after its acquisition by Elon Musk, changed its content moderation policy. Thus, potentially offensive posts were released in certain countries. This process culminated in court orders from the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil to block posts and accounts. Invoking its terms of use of service, social network X refused to comply with such orders. That reaction caused the application to be blocked.[1] Subsequently, the social network X met the demands of that court – which acts as the Brazilian constitutional court – and the application was able to function again.[2]