BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — The majority of justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court have agreed to make social media companies liable for illegal postings by their users.
Gilmar Mendes on Wednesday became the sixth of the court’s 11 justices to vote to open a path for companies like Meta, X and Microsoft to be sued and pay fines for content published by their users. Voting is ongoing but a simple majority is all that is needed for the measure to pass.
The ruling will come after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned of possible visa restrictions against foreign officials allegedly involved in censoring American citizens.
The only dissenting Brazilian justice so far is André Mendonça and his vote was made public last week.
The social media proposal would become law once voting is finished and the result is published. But Brazil’s Congress could still pass another law to reverse the measure.
The current legislation states social media companies can only be held responsible in those cases if they do not remove hazardous content after a court order.
