Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) has conceded that it is struggling to deal with the overwhelming wave of fake news created and disseminated around the country’s presidential elections. In a press conference that took place yesterday (22) following the emergence of a WhatsApp mass messaging scandal involving leading presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro , TSE minister Justice Rosa Weber said there was no failure regarding Brazil’s electoral justice around dealing with disinformation, but later admitted there is a problem. “We all know fake news is a worldwide phenomenon, which calls for reflection. We would like to have an immediate and effective solution, but we don’t,” Weber told journalists. “Whoever has the solution to fight disinformation, please show it to us. We haven’t discovered a miracle,” she added.
“[Fake news] is a new occurrence that happens in parallel to the real world and [in the digital environment] rules are different. We still don’t have a legislation that allows us to give an efficient answer – we are uncovering the issue.”
Weber was questioned whether the investigation into Bolsonaro’s campaigning practices – and the seven legal proceedings associated to the case – would be concluded before the run-off this coming Sunday.
WhatsApp has notified the marketing companies involved in the scheme and banned spam accounts. Parent company Facebook has also taken down a number of pages and accounts supporting the frontrunner candidate. The quick reaction from the social networks to the occurrence suggests the authorities have been slow.
However, the TSE minister and the other senior government and Federal Police figures present in the conference refused to provide any details about any progress that had been made or about deadlines.
Full Article: Brazilian authorities admit fake news struggle | ZDNet.