By LUIZ SERGIO CANÁRIO*
We haven't hit rock bottom, but it's important that governments and people resist the control that platforms have and want to extend over our lives.
On January 7, the world was surprised by Mark Zuckerberg's announcement that Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is changing its policies for checking fake news and the limits of what is considered offensive in its product usage policy. The checking of fake news will be restricted to certain topics, and messages normally associated with hate will no longer be checked and removed. These changes pave the way for the transformation of the networks under its control into a kind of no-man's land, a free-for-all, with few or no restrictions. Meta is allied with X, owned by Elon Musk, a right-wing figure who has earned an important position on Trump's team, on the issue of a lawless land. And all in the name of freedom of expression. Of course, from the perspective of the far right.
This turn of events takes place exactly one day after the election results were confirmed and on the eve of Donald Trump taking office as President of the United States. Coincidence? Obviously not. These are new winds blowing in other directions. And the boat is going in the direction of the wind. Or as the expression often used in English, business as usual, in Portuguese, business as usual. Nothing new in that regard.
The issue is that the implications for people's lives, countries and societies are not small, nor are they restricted to the business world. Exposing LGBT+ populations, for example, to hate speech, direct insults and threats are not part of the business; they are consequences of decisions made based on it. Allowing the proliferation of fake news, slandering political agents and interfering in elections affects the internal political processes in countries. Destroying the reputations of popular leaders is allowed without any restraint. Zuckerberg says he is returning to the early days of Facebook, created as a tool for people to communicate freely. It probably didn't work that way even in the early days, when it was used primarily in the dormitories of Harvard University, where it all began. It is possible that there have been violent or slanderous posts since then.
Mark Zuckerberg is a brilliant businessman who built an empire based on an app for students to use to exchange profiles, photos and posts. Today, it is a company worth US$1,5 trillion on the US stock exchange. He is one of the richest men on the planet. He owns social and communication networks with billions of users who use these products every day. A huge network with global reach that distributes all types of information and whose revenue is largely concentrated in the sale of advertisements. Here are some figures from the company:

The US and Canada account for nearly 50% of revenue and only 9% of users. They are by far the most profitable market. This makes this region extremely important. This concentration on a small base is a risk factor. A reduction in the number of users implies a significant reduction in revenue. The company would be forced to increase its share in other regions, especially Asia/Pacific with huge populations, such as India, to compensate.
The large dispersion of users around the world, in countries of all sizes, and with various policies and laws for internet use, from European to African, makes the management of usage policies very complex and expensive. Complying with the national legislation of dozens of countries is not a simple or cheap task.
On January 8, The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, one of the owners of Amazon, published an article on the subject, highlighting the following points: (i) Mark Zuckerberg has never liked the business of monitoring compliance with Facebook's usage policy; (ii) There is a cold business calculation in these measures: with Trump's Republican Party controlling the White House and Congress, in addition to a sympathetic supermajority installed in the Supreme Court, Meta has more to lose by offending conservatives than by offending liberals or marginalized groups.
(iii) On January 7, 2021, the day after the Capitol invasion, Meta suspended Donald Trump’s account. They did nothing until Biden was confirmed as President of the United States; (iv) During Joe Biden’s term, with regulatory threats looming, the company has worked to crack down on fraud and conspiracy theories, especially around the COVID pandemic and vaccine safety and efficacy; (v) Meta’s changes may be linked to the dinner with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Largo home, the $1 million donation to Donald Trump’s inauguration party, and the appointment of a Trump ally to Meta’s board: to align itself with the government.
Regardless of his personal convictions, Meta’s turnaround is a business decision. He is nodding to the Trumpist base, which won the elections, with measures that are very dear to them. He is aligning himself with the easy discourse of “freedom of expression”. He is reducing operational costs and the contractual responsibility of ensuring a non-aggressive environment on his networks. He is trying to preserve his user base, the source of his revenue, in his main market, responsible for more than 50% of sales. Losing users in this market could lead investors to stop buying his shares, lowering his market value, in addition to his revenue.
These points raised by the newspaper help to establish the scenario and scope of the decision. In a certain sense, it is also a strategy to put the “goat in the room”. The political and institutional environments in the US favor, as seen, the taking of these measures. Meta’s movement is clearly in favor of the right-wing around the world, which has misinformation and fake news its main instruments in public debate.
It remains to be seen how the European Community and Europe in general will respond to the shift to the right in some countries, as well as governments such as Brazil and India. Almost 80% of its user base is outside the US, Canada and Europe. Although its revenue in these regions is not proportional to the number of users, it represents 30% of the total revenue, which is not insignificant.
The influence of Meta products around the world is very large. Donald Trump won the 2016 elections with a significant contribution, decisive for some, from his communication actions on Facebook. In 2018, Jair Bolsonaro's election received a significant boost using WhatsApp. The articulation of his electoral base was intensively carried out using this application. Likewise, the victorious campaign in favor of Brexit was greatly influenced by the use of Facebook.
The importance of these social networks in today's world cannot be underestimated. They are present in our daily lives. They have changed the way people get information and thus guide their positions in all social dimensions. From the brand of soap they prefer to which politician they will direct their hatred towards, to the electoral dispute. Before these platforms, almost all information was intermediated by the press, which acted as a filter usually in favor of the interests of the dominant classes.
There was even a common saying here in Brazil that what didn't come out in the National Journal da TV Globo was not true or even existed. But even these companies, which continue to exist without the same influence as in the past, were subject to rules and laws, ultimately public concessions that can be revoked. They could be reached by the courts of countries with greater or lesser rigor. Except in dictatorships, which heavily censored the press, it happened that publications with less reach ended up unmasking gross manipulations, such as that of TV Globo, transforming the rally for direct elections into an activity on a São Paulo holiday.
Their value depended on their circulation, on whether readers were willing to go to newsstands to buy the publications, or on TV and radio audiences. The internet changes this scenario. There is no longer any forced intermediation in the distribution of information. People receive information all the time from various sources. Some from the press, but much from posts by friends or people in their network of contacts. And whether or not this information reaches people is determined by the use of more sophisticated filters than simple intermediation, algorithms, which are controlled by the platform owners, as is now the case with Meta.
The biggest difference compared to the press is that these filters are selective. The National Journal could not convey different information to different audiences. Facebook can. It can segment social groups in such a way that people have access to the information that makes the most sense according to the analysis of the app's profiles. Believing or not believing in the information does not depend on trust in the medium. National Journal, TV Globo, were trustworthy, in the eyes of the general public.
Facebook positions itself as a neutral medium; it is not the one that makes information reliable, and it does not need to be reliable. It positions itself as a free platform for contacting people and allowing the “free” debate of ideas and exchange of information. Trust comes from the source of the information. If a religious person that the person trusts, regardless of their religion, passes on information or posts a comment, it is reliable and truthful. Even if it is not. The person receiving the information needs to have the ability, the will and the guidance to seek confirmation of the information they receive.
The scenario in our country, and in much of the world, including the US, is not like this. This is the main source of power of social networks. People are preferring opinions to the information needed to draw their own conclusions. The opinion that comes from where the person trusts is sufficient and taken as truth. And this has affected the conventional media, which increasingly publishes comments rather than information. The internet has changed the standards of information. There is access to everything you want. And people are starting to interact and get information within the limits of their network of contacts, the bubbles.
In his inauguration speech as the federal government's communications secretary, Sidônio Palmeira said: “Information from services (dealing with the government) does not reach the end. The population cannot see the government in its virtues. The lies in digital environments promoted by the extreme right create a smokescreen in real life, manipulate innocent people and threaten humanity.” Regardless of whether the government's communications policy is good or bad, or whether it works or not, it is certain that the social media environment ends up interfering in public debate and in the formation of the population's political positions.
There is a certain exaggeration in the threat to humanity, but it is not an exaggeration that there is a real threat to the public debate of ideas and to the necessary limits to the much-talked-about “freedom of expression”. Freedom of expression has become a concept dear to the far right. It is not the classic liberal concept of a citizen having the right to publicly express his or her ideas. It is the freedom for content of any nature, fascism, prejudice, violence, to be freely expressed without any possibility of social restraint. Lying is no longer punishable and becomes a lawful behavior, covered by this cloak of “freedom of expression”.
These changes to Meta's policies deepen the application of this concept in a way never seen before. Under the new rules, anyone can say whatever they want, about whatever they want, with almost no restrictions or control from the company. This is still a risky move. Meta is very dependent on the retention of its active users. More so than other bigtechs.
Google is focused on search engines, which do not have registered users; they are a service. They have several other products, such as Gmail and Android. Amazon is a powerhouse in e-commerce that does not depend on users, but rather on consumers for the products it sells. Microsoft is a powerhouse in computer software. A movement by governments, social movements, political parties and other social forces that feel the impact of these new policies and start to work to stop people from using Google's networks could be seen by the market as a sign of the company's loss of value, which is a huge complicating factor for the company.
Meta may have initiated a movement that strengthens the actions of national governments against it. The Brazilian government reacted and requested information, which was sent, but, in the AGU's understanding, it does not serve the interests of the country or our legislation.
It is very difficult to contain Meta’s power. The existing legal and regulatory measures are not enough. They have the technology that controls the platforms and commitments to meet the needs of their customers. Control of the technology allows them to do whatever they want with the data they store, our personal data. Commitments to their customers are essential to maintain and grow their revenue. Depending on their commercial and political interests, they can always change the way their platforms work. As they are doing now.
Mark Zuckerberg has called on the Donald Trump administration to intervene and use its power to block the actions of governments and “secret courts” that go against his rhetoric of protecting “freedom of expression” and his interests. We haven’t reached rock bottom, but it’s important that governments and people resist the control that these platforms have and want to extend over our lives.
Certainly, the issue of our control over the data we capture should be part of the discussions. Without our data, these platforms lose their main “asset” and source of their revenue. Open access to government oversight bodies of the controls present in their algorithms is also a way forward.
The goat is in the room. Let's see what damage he will do.
*Luis Sergio Canario is a master's student in political economy at UFABC.
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