Supreme Court to rule on its access to social media data

In 2020, a congressional committee investigating the spread of misinformation during the 2018 elections requested from social media platforms data from deleted accounts linked to the family of President Jair Bolsonaro. They wanted to investigate these accounts’ role in fake news rings. Twitter and Facebook, however, denied access and said they would only grant it if ordered to by U.S. courts.

The committee tried to subpoena Big Tech executives to explain themselves, but its work was then halted by Covid, and it is now set to shut down for good without fulfilling its goals or producing a final report.

Last year, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes hit the same hurdle when requesting data on 80 Facebook users investigated for allegedly inciting demonstrations against democratic institutions. 

With powers that go beyond those of a congressional committee, Justice Moraes ended up getting the data. He ruled that the company would be fined USD 233,000 per day for non-compliance.

Access to this type of information remains a gray area under Brazilian law. 

The matter has been on the docket of the Supreme Court for years, and justices now want to prioritize it as the elections draw closer and worries about how misinformation could skew the races grow larger. Justices planned on...