MBL requests encampment at Facebook's door.
Members of the MBL (Movimento Brasil Livre - Free Brazil Movement) protested this afternoon in front of Facebook's headquarters in São Paulo against the removal, by the social network, of profiles and pages accused of spreading fake news; they accused Facebook of censorship and asked for the return of Orkut; "We are going to file a lawsuit. There is already a statement from the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office asking Facebook to comment, and now we are here at this demonstration to ensure not only that the pages linked to the MBL return, but all the right-wing pages that were censored," said Kim Kataguiri.
247 - Members of the MBL (Free Brazil Movement) held a protest this afternoon in front of Facebook's headquarters in São Paulo against the removal, by the social network, of profiles and pages accused of spreading fake news.
They accused Facebook of censorship and called for the return of Orkut, a popular social network in the early 2000s. "We are going to file a lawsuit. The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office has already requested that Facebook respond, and now we are here at this demonstration to ensure not only that pages linked to the MBL return, but all right-wing pages that have been censored," said Kim Kataguiri, one of the MBL coordinators.
"We are dealing with a company that does not follow Brazilian law," added councilman Fernando Holiday (DEM-SP), a member of the MBL.
Watch the video of the protest:
Read the Reuters report on the removal of pages linked to MBL:
Facebook takes down network linked to MBL ahead of elections.
SÃO PAULO (Reuters) - Facebook on Wednesday took down a network of pages and accounts used by members of the right-wing activist group Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL), cracking down on what it called a network of misleading profiles ahead of the October elections. Facebook said in a statement that it deactivated 196 pages and 87 accounts in Brazil for their participation in “a coordinated network that concealed itself using fake accounts on Facebook, and hid from people the nature and origin of its content with the purpose of generating division and spreading misinformation.”
The statement does not identify the pages or users involved, and a Facebook representative declined to identify them. Sources told Reuters, however, that the network was run by prominent members of the MBL.
MBL later said in a statement shared on Twitter that several of its coordinators had been affected, confirming the Reuters report.
The group gained prominence by leading protests in 2016 for the impeachment of then-President Dilma Rousseff, employing an aggressive style of online politics that helped polarize the debate in Brazil.
The MBL statement criticized Facebook for deactivating the accounts of several group coordinators without providing an explanation, stating that some of the profiles taken down contained the true names and information of the members.
"But, unlike Facebook, freedom of expression and democracy are pillars of the MBL, so we will use all the media, legal, and political resources that democracy offers us to recover the pages that were taken down and reverse the persecution we have suffered," the group said.
The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office in Goiás has requested explanations from Facebook regarding the removal of pages and profiles from its social network, and has given it 48 hours to "send a list of all pages and profiles removed and the specific factual justification for the deletion," according to a statement from the MPF.
Facebook declined to comment on the request from the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office and the criticism from the MBL.
The deactivated pages, which together had more than half a million followers, ranged from sensationalist news to political topics, with a clearly conservative approach, with names like Jornalivre and O Diário Nacional.
By distorting the shared control of the pages, MBL members were able to disseminate their coordinated messages as if the news came from different independent media outlets, according to the sources.
Facebook said it took the network offline in Brazil after a "rigorous investigation" because the profiles involved were fake or misleading, violating its authenticity policy.
The social network has a separate set of tools to combat the spread of fake news with the help of external fact-checking companies.
Facebook has faced pressure to combat fake accounts and other types of deceptive profiles on its network. Last year, the company acknowledged that its platform had been used for what it called "information operations" that used fake profiles and other methods to influence public opinion during the 2016 US election, and promised to combat fake news. US intelligence agencies claim that the Russian government conducted an online campaign to influence the elections in the country, and cases of political groups using social media to deceive people have emerged around the world since then. There is no indication of foreign involvement in the MBL network taken down on Wednesday, according to sources.