Wow, Brasil is getting in on this action now, check it out...
It really looks like some MAJOR exposure/leaks/whistleblowing is about to go down, and the Elites are arming up to try to defend themselves against it. Facebook/Google/Twitter going full censorship mode on top of this, etc etc.. Batten down the hatches!!
First France, Now Brazil Unveils Plans to Empower the Government to Censor the Internet in the Name of Stopping “Fake News”https://theintercept.com/2018/01/10/fir ... fake-news/“In the next few days, the Federal Police will begin activities in Brasília [the nation’s capital] by a specially formed group to combat false news during the [upcoming 2018 presidential] election process,” the official police tweet stated. It added: “the measures are intended to identify and punish the authors of ‘fake news’ for or against candidates.” Top police officials told media outlets that their working group would include representatives of the judiciary’s election branch and leading prosecutors, though one of the key judicial figures involved is the highly controversial right-wing Supreme Court judge, Gilmar Mendes, who has long blurred judicial authority with his political activism.
![Image](https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2018/01/pftr-1515584255.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90)
Among the most confounding aspects of the Twitter announcement
is that it is very difficult to identify any existing law that actually authorizes the federal police to exercise the powers they just announced they intend to wield, particularly over the internet. At least as of now, they are
claiming for themselves one of the most extremist powers imaginable – the right of the government to control and suppress political content on the internet during an election – with no legal framework to define its parameters or furnish safeguards against abuse.
Tellingly, these police officials vow that they will proceed to implement the censorship program
even if no new law is enacted. They insist that
no new laws are necessary by pointing to a pre-internet censorship law enacted in 1983 – during the time Brazil was ruled by a brutal military dictatorship that severely limited free expression and routinely imprisoned dissidents.That 1983 legal framework was used by Brazil’s military dictatorship to arrest dissidents, critics, and democracy activists. That they are now eyeing a resurrection of this dictatorship-era censorship law to regulate and censor contemporary political expression on the internet – all in the name of stopping “Fake News” – powerfully symbolizes how inherently tyrannical and dangerous are all government attempts to control political expression.
Both Brazil and France cited the same purported justification for obtaining censorship powers over the internet: namely, the dangers posed by alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
In the wake of Trump’s unexpected 2016 victory, U.S. media outlets produced a tidal wave of reports warning of the damage and pervasiveness of
“Fake News.” Seemingly overnight, every media outlet and commentator was casually using the term as though its meaning were clear and indisputable.
Yet, as many have long been warning,
few people, if any, ever bothered to define what the term actually means.