The company’s goal is to establish a regulation that strike a balance and safeguard the interests of all stakeholders, Google officials say.
The top executive of Google Brazil said on Tuesday the company encourages greater dialogue around regulating digital platforms in the country, in order to change a bill that might turn out to be "perverse" for everyone.
Nearly two months ago, the country's top court ordered an investigation into executives at social messaging service Telegram and Google who were in charge of a campaign criticizing a proposed internet regulation bill.
Bill 2630, also known as the Fake News Law, would put the onus on internet platforms, search engines and social messaging services to find and report illegal material, and charge hefty fines for failures to do so.
The director of Google Brazil, Fabio Coelho, told reporters that the company "is not against" the regulation of digital platforms, but believes that regulation should not turn out “to be perverse to everyone.”
According to Coelho, the company is in discussions with the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel), and with the rapporteur of the so-called Fake News Law - lawmaker Orlando Silva, who handles the bill's process in the Congress - and with the federal government over establishing regulation that "will be good to everyone."
In May, Brazil's antitrust agency CADE launched a preliminary enquiry into Google and Meta (along with its subsidiaries Facebook and Instagram is banned and designated as extremist in Russia). The regulator believes that the companies abused their dominant position to oppose the adoption of the Fake News Bill.
In particular, before the document was considered by the country's lower house of parliament, Google Brazil posted a warning on its homepage saying such a bill could "worsen your internet."
Source: Reuters
