Adds reaction from President Bolsonaro
BRASILIA (awp/afp) – A Brazilian Supreme Court judge on Friday blocked the popular online messaging service Telegram, widely used by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro who denounced a decision that endangered the “freedom” of Brazilians .
In a country plagued by misinformation, this measure came seven months before the presidential election.
On several occasions, Telegram “did not respect judicial orders”, wrote Judge Alexandre de Moraes in his judgment published on the official website of the Supreme Court, which orders “the complete and integral suspension of the operation in Brazil of Telegram “, downloaded on 53% of mobile phones.
The decision “is inadmissible”, reacted President Bolsonaro.
The judge “has not acted against the two or three people who he thinks should be blocked, so he decides to affect 70 million people (…). What is at stake is our freedom”, said the president.
This encrypted online messaging was a keystone of Mr. Bolsonaro’s campaign strategy, which aims for presidential re-election in October and defends unlimited freedom of expression.
Earlier, Justice and Security Minister Anderson Torres tweeted that millions of Brazilians were “wronged by an individual decision” and added that his ministry was studying “a solution to restore the people’s right to use the social network”, without specifying what measure he intended to adopt.
24 hour delay
Pavel Durov – the Russian founder of Telegram headquartered in Dubai – apologized to Brazil’s Supreme Court on Friday and claimed it was a “communication problem”.
“It seems that we had a problem with emails between our corporate addresses telegram.org and the Supreme Court of Brazil. As a result of this communication problem, the court ordered to block Telegram because we do not have not responded,” Durov wrote on his platform, asking for a new delay to meet the demands of Brazilian justice.
Unlike other platforms, on Telegram there is practically no content moderation of messages and groups can gather up to 200,000 members, which considerably increases the viral potential of false information.
This has earned Telegram sanctions in some countries, from the suspension – temporary or permanent – of its services to the targeted blocking of certain accounts or groups of users.
“Our Telegram account provides daily information on actions of national interest (of the government), which are unfortunately omitted by many” media, wrote the head of state on Twitter on Friday, before the publication of the judgment. by Mr. Moraes.
The Supreme Court judge cites Telegram’s refusal to block the account of Allan dos Santos, a Bolsonarist blogger under investigation for disinformation, at the request of Brazilian justice. The magistrate also mentioned the platform’s lack of cooperation in child pornography cases.
He gave 24 hours to the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) to enforce his decision and block access to the platform throughout the territory, until Telegram “applies the judicial orders” imposed on it .
“Lawless Territory”
“Because it doesn’t enforce court rulings, Telegram is a kind of lawless territory. Election justice rules, like banning mass messaging in groups or anticipating campaigning, don’t apply there. not”, explained Pablo Ortellado, professor at the University of Sao Paulo and specialist in digital platforms, on Friday.
On February 15, Telegram was conspicuously absent from an agreement signed by the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) with eight digital platforms (Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, Instagram, YouTube and Kwai) which pledged to fight the disinformation in view of the presidential election.
TSE President Luis Roberto Barroso claimed in December that “a large number of conspiracy theories and false information” were being disseminated “without any control” on Telegram.
At the time, he had already threatened the application of an “outright suspension in Brazil”.
“After the investigations and the illegal imprisonments, as well as the censorship of social networks, Brazil is officially a judicial dictatorship!”, reacted Bolsonarist deputy Carlos Jordy on Twitter, an allusion to the arrest of Youtubeurs as part of a Supreme Court inquiry into misinformation.
The election of the far-right president in 2018 was marred by the massive dissemination of false information, particularly on WhatsApp, Telegram’s main competitor.
Jair Bolsonaro’s Telegram account has more than a million subscribers, compared to 48,000 for his main likely opponent in the October election, the left-wing ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), who ahead of him in the polls.
jm-mel-lg/pt/mm/cn