Posts linking Lula’s party to criminal activities will have to be deleted

Justice Alexandre de Moraes, of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court, ordered the removal of social media disinformative posts that linked the Workers’ Party, of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to the criminal faction First Command of the Capital, known as PCC, and with fascism and Nazism.

The decision also calls for the removal of posts that linked the Workers’ Party to the murder of a former mayor of the party — which has fueled conspiracy theories for years — and others that suggested Lula equated the poor with toilet paper.

The content was published by pages or profiles of supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro and republished by people close to him — such as one of his children, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, and lawmaker Carla Zambelli. The daily fine for non-compliance is BRL 10,000 (USD 1,863), and BRL 15,000 in case of a repeat offense.

Mr. Moraes said that “the sensationalism and the senseless dissemination of untrue content of such magnitude may compromise the fairness of the electoral process, injuring values, principles and constitutional guarantees, notably the freedom to vote and the exercise of citizenship.”

In 2018, disinformation that linked the Workers’ Party to criminal activities was massively disseminated and benefited the election of Mr. Bolsonaro. Mr. Moraes, who will be the electoral court chief in August, had already said that he would not tolerate similar attitudes in this year’s elections, which will be held in October.

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