Digital Platforms and Hate Speech Between Liberalism and Digital Constitutionalism: An Analysis of the Regulatory Model of Bill 2630/2020

Abstract

The article explores the potential accountability of digital platforms, focusing on their impact on politics and political minorities, with an emphasis on the amplification of misinformation, reproduction of violence, and hate speech in Brazil. Based on a qualitative, exploratory approach grounded in documental and bibliographic analysis, the study examines Bill 2630/2020, currently stalled in the Brazilian Congress, while considering the potential legislative reaction to the ongoing Supreme Court judgment on the constitutionality of the Internet Civil Framework and its implications for platform liability regarding third-party content. The article discusses the architecture of social networks, the business models driving them, the transition from digital liberalism to digital constitutionalism, and the judiciary’s role in this process. It analyzes regulatory models for social media, highlights the shortcomings of self-regulation, and points out the inadequacies of regulated self-regulation in addressing unacceptable risks to the fundamental rights of political minorities. The study aims to contribute to a critical and more substantive agenda for digital constitutionalism.