How civil society views disinformation and the regulation of digital platforms

Organizations warn about the impact of disinformation and new moderation rules on digital platforms, highlighting the risks to digital security and democracy

This photo illustration shows a woman checking the settings of the messaging application WhatsApp, in Bangalore on October 25, 2022, after the application was hit by a global outage, according to reports by monitoring site Downdetector and user complaints on social media. (Photo by Manjunath KIRAN / AFP)

The rise of disinformation in digital spaces and the growing power of major platforms have reignited the debate concerning the need to regulate this sector. Experts and civil society organizations warn that the protection of fundamental rights and historically marginalized group should be at the center of these discussions.  

Recent changes to Meta´s content moderation rules sparked a response from over 180 Brazilian organizations, including Conectas Human Rights, who issued a public statement of condemnation. According to the organizations, the company´s new policy poses a risk to digital security and human rights.  

The matter was also discussed at a public hearing organized by the Attorney General´s Office (AGU) at the beginning of the year. Different perspectives on the impact of these guidelines, especially on more vulnerable populations, were gathered.  The central concerns are the undermining of mechanisms to combat hate speech and disinformation, as well as the lack of transparency regarding decision-making on the platforms.  

The impact of disinformation on vulnerable groups

In the current landscape, content moderation policies or the lack of them, disproportionately affect groups that have been historically and socially marginalized, increasing the difficulties they face in their daily struggles, especially for causes surrounding gender, sexuality and race.

During the hearing organized by the Attorney General´s Office, representatives from several civil society organizations expressed their views on the subject. 

The Internetlab stressed that women, Black people and the LGBTQIA+ community are the target of online hate speech. During the 2024 Brazilian elections, for example, although 15% of the candidates were women, they were the target of offensive remarks 68% of the time. The organization emphasized how the opacity of moderation policies can perpetuate silencing and reinforce the exclusion of groups from the public arena.

Agência Pública pointed out that “you can´t even complain to Procon” (the consumer protection agency) about moderation failures, and stressed the disproportionate burden faced by journalists in debunking disinformation spread on these platforms. 

In their statement Artigo 19 highlighted that “big tech companies attempt corporate resistance to democratic oversight,” and they said it is “necessary to stress that Meta’s moderation is not sufficient, given that they often block content from historically silenced groups”. The organization also argued that the discussion surrounding content curation by these companies is often tied more to economic interests than to a genuine defense of freedom of expression.

The National Association of Travestis and Transsexuals (Antra) stressed that tech companies “use people´s data, including sensitive data, to send personalized adverts”, reinforcing the abusive practices of these platforms. This process fuels systematic disinformation campaigns, with consequences that go beyond the digital environment, shifting the dangers of online hate speech into physical threats in the public realm.

Democracia em Xeque brought up the issue of “the harm this lack of moderation and regulation causes, not only on individual and collective rights, but also in terms of public policies”. The institute stressed that there are economic interests, based on which “the platforms shape their practices to pursue profit and they give in to political pressure”.

Sleeping Giants, emphasized that “it is only through transparency mechanisms that we can find out what, how, when, and where moderation is taking place.” The group also highlighted the negative impacts of Meta´s new policies, especially for the LGBTI+ community, “by allowing discussions that associate sexual orientation and gender identity with mental illnesses”. 

The Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) acknowledged that social media are an essential means of communication for Indigenous peoples and they warned that :“we expect violence to increase even more and that we will see a rise in disinformation in these spaces, following the policy changes at Meta”, particularly given experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The  Alana Institute stressed that moderation is “not only a necessity but also a constitutional duty”, and they recalled that Brazil already has a legal framework for holding companies responsible for their actions and omissions.

Conectas and Artigo 19 raise an alert at the UN on disinformation

The spread of disinformation, hate speech and online harassment have jeopardized the integrity of electoral processes and the right to vote, especially for historically marginalized groups. This was the warning issued by Conectas Human Rights and Artigo 19 in a document submitted to the UN Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression.

The document highlights how these phenomena affect political participation and public life, and also stresses the need to regulate the business models of the large digital platforms. The organizations recommend measures that promote an ecosystem with more plurality in terms of information and also aligned with human rights.

The initiative comes amid growing global concern about the role of social media in spreading misleading content and deepening political polarization. In Brazil, the issue gained prominence following the impact of disinformation in recent elections, including attacks on the electoral systems and attempts to delegitimize results.