Brazil criminalizes bullying and cyberbullying

Illustration: Chugunova Anastasia/Shutterstock

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Monday signed a bill that defines bullying and cyberbullying as crimes and creates a national policy to prevent child sexual abuse.

The legislation also defines crimes related to child sexual abuse images and child trafficking as heinous crimes, making them non-bailable and ineligible for pardon. Incitement to suicide via the internet is also included in this category.

The law defines bullying as “the systematic intimidation of one or more persons, individually or in groups, through physical or psychological violence, intentionally and repeatedly, without apparent motivation” and provides for a harsher punishment for cyberbullying.

Another article requires publicly funded institutions that develop activities with children and adolescents to keep updated criminal records on all their employees.

In a statement, the presidential press office said that by signing the new law, the government shows its “commitment to creating and implementing effective policies and strategies to prevent, combat and punish cases of school and virtual violence, as well as promoting awareness in schools and society about the negative effects of bullying and cyberbullying.”

In Brazil, the age of criminal responsibility is 18. Juveniles between the ages of 12 and 17 are subject to a maximum sentence of three years of socio-educational measures.

The bill was originally authored by far-right Congressman Osmar Terra in 2021 with a focus on harsher penalties for incitement to suicide and child sexual abuse images, but was extensively modified by other lawmakers. The House approved the bill in September 2023, and the Senate followed suit in December.

In a separate effort, the administration has pushed to increase the liability of Big Tech companies for cyberbullying and school violence.

A bill authored by a group of lawmakers amends Brazil’s main legislation on the internet to require social media applications to monitor and remove “illegal or potentially illegal content that characterizes or encourages violence or multiple-victim incidents [such as mass shootings] in schools.”