Lula's Ministry of Truth

In the novel 1984, the extraordinary political dystopia of the English George Orwell, a totalitarian country called Oceania has a Ministry of Truth, whose mission is to control the information that reaches citizens, indoctrinate them and, whenever necessary, rewrite history. The idea of providing the government with such a structure has never been foreign to the left – and Lula's third term demonstrates this once again.

One of the first measures signed by the president, right on the day of his inauguration, was the creation of a national prosecutor's Office for the defense of democracy, subordinate to the Attorney General of the Union (AGU). One of its main purposes is to “confront misinformation about public policies” – without a precise definition of what “misinformation” is. In the Secretariat of communication of the presidency of the Republic (Secom) a new office has emerged, baptized with the beautiful name of the Department for the promotion of freedom of expression. Its stated goal is also to combat misinformation.

Led by Flávio Dino, the Ministry of Justice is eager to put into effect legislation that allows removing from circulation, especially from social networks, fake news and so-called “anti-democratic content”. The government wanted to do this through a provisional measure, which even had a draft. But Congress has warned – emphatically – that it will not accept being run over by an MP. There is a bill on the subject, the PL das Fake News (2630/20), which has already been approved in the Senate and is awaiting processing in the House.

In addition to these major initiatives, the government gives other worrying signals that should not be ignored. The idea that the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff was a "coup" and not a legitimate political process, guided by the Constitution, has already appeared in the official government communication made by Secom. The same happened in an article published by Agência Brasil on January 13. The text said that the company's Board of Trustees was "impeached after the 2016 coup". Asked, the new president of the state, Hélio Doyle, said: “if it depends on me, he will continue saying that it was a coup”. Pure and simple reinvention of the past.

There is also an effort to mobilize social media in favor of the government. At the beginning of the month, Lula participated, together with the first lady, Janja, in a meeting with left-wing digital influencers. The event was called influencers for Democracy. On the occasion, the president stressed that it is not because the elections are over that the role of “defending democracy” is over. The presidential couple asked guests to follow each other on social media.

At this point, it is important to remember how the PT behaved in relation to the press and freedom of expression in the past. In Lula's first visit to the Planalto, between 2002 and 2009, much was said about “social control of the media” and the creation of a federal journalism Council, able to punish media outlets for the content they published. In the Government of Dilma Rousseff, the same proposals returned with new guises, such as that of an “observatory of media content”. Created in 2013, a certain National Forum for the democratization of communication gained unrestricted support from the PT to try to put in place a bill of popular initiative, which would embed in private radio and TV companies “mechanisms that stimulate and allow public control over programming, such as councils with the participation of society, editorial boards and Ombudsman Services”.

In an era when social media was just in its infancy, leftist governments were responsible for creating a collection of websites stocked with public money and tasked with praising the government and attacking its opponents. It was a pioneering version of the bolsonarists' hate cabinet – and the network of influencers that Lula and Janja want to keep mobilized.

To close this retrospective, let us recall a phrase of Lula, irritated by questions about the use of public money: “I don't think the role of the press is to supervise”. And a statement by José Dirceu, in 2013, according to which Brazil suffered from an “excess of freedom and the right of expression and the press”. Condemned to live in the shadows because of the Mensalão and Petrolão, Dirceu received a cuddle from Lula last week, during the PT's birthday party.

It is important to recapitulate all this history to show that the distrust caused by the actions of Lula 3 have reason to be. And also because the past few years have given the president and his party the best possible pretexts to return to the charge with their proposals for controlling the “truth”.

After pandemic and excess of information; of contentions about hypotheses of rigged elections; of attacks driven by political desperation. Never before has the environment been so conducive for the defense of democracy to serve as a disguise for the creation of a Ministry of Truth.

The coming weeks should bring news on two fronts. On the one hand, the AGU installed a Working Group to regulate the activities of the National Prosecutor's Office for the defense of democracy. Representatives of civil society and the communication sector were invited to compose the WG, as well as lawyers specialized in the subject. But so far, there is no representation of digital platforms.

In parallel, discussions on the Fake News Bill (PL) should be resumed. What the government proposed, when drafting an MP to replace the PL, was much more than a reinforcement in the moderation of content on social networks, to prevent the dissemination of messages “possibly related to the commission of crimes against the Democratic state of law”. One of the measures would force internet platforms to take down denounced content, without requiring a court order. Moreover, the executive would gain the power to determine changes in algorithms and the operation of digital platforms, so that “risk mitigation measures”are adopted.

It said: "in the event of extraordinary circumstances leading to a serious threat to public safety, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security may determine the adoption of crisis protocols, to be observed by internet application providers, with proportionate and reasonable measures, in accordance with the regulations.”

There is some resignation among the platforms with the coming of a Brazilian regulation for their work. This is because a path has already been paved by the European Union, where the Digital Services Act (DSA) came into force this month. The Code provides for measures that have been adopted in Brazil in recent months, but without clear rules, such as the demonetization of profiles and channels. Other ideas, such as strengthening independent fact-checking services and increasing transparency about who disseminates or promotes political content, are also present in the PL of Fake News.

The National Prosecutor's Office for the defense of democracy also provokes reactions. At the beginning of the month, Senator Sergio Moro (Union-PR) presented a draft legislative decree to simply bar the creation of the prosecutor's office. According to the former Minister of Justice, the agency, “under the pretext of promoting the confrontation of disinformation on public policies, can serve as a basis for the instrumentalization of political censorship of those who oppose the government”.

After the statements that classify the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff as a coup, federal deputy Kim Kataguiri (União-SP) filed a representation at AGU, accusing members of the government – including Lula, who repeats the cantilena – of disseminating fake news. “The response to my demand will show the true end of this prosecution,” Kataguiri said. “We will know if it serves to protect the rule of law or to persecute opponents of the government". It would be a beautiful irony if the first target of the Ministry of truth was the PT itself.