Without a doubt, the most significative change in the 2017 Brazilian electoral legislation is the possibility of boosting “content hired directly with the internet application provider with headquarters and jurisdiction in the country”, in the terms of art. 26, item XV of the Elections Law. This is now an exception to the prohibition of broadcasting “paid electoral propaganda” on the internet, which is still in force on the new wording of art. 57-C of the Elections Law. See below the comments of Hélio Silveira [in Portuguese], electoral lawyer and associate of Silveira, Andrade advogados and one of the authors of the book “Electoral Rights in the Digital Era”:

These and other discussions involving disinformation processes and the use of robots in political-electoral debates are systematized and discussed in-depth in the work “Electoral Rights in the Digital Era”, a result of the meetings of a workgroup involving InternetLab researchers, an independent research center on Law and technology, and Brazilian electoral lawyers. The book will be released soon, but it is already available for pre-order here [in Portuguese].

Team responsible for the content: Thiago Dias Oliva (thiago.oliva@internetlab.org.br) and Francisco Brito Cruz (francisco@internetlab.org.br). 

Translation: Ana Luiza Araujo