Regulatory Framework to Combat Fake News in Brazil: an analysis of legislative proposals

The objective of this research is to analyze the bills that are being processed in the National Congress that concern the fight against fake news in Brazil. Especially since the 2018 elections, and even more so with the 2022 elections, the debate on the subject has been intensifying, as well as the establishment of mechanisms for the mass production and reproduction of this false content with the intention of confusing Brazilians with respect to topics of paramount importance to the country, such as the treatment for Covid-19. To carry out this analysis, we used as a methodological procedure the Content Analysis, by Laurence Bardin (1977), to analyze the 50 bills, which were being processed in the Chamber and the Federal Senate, until 2021, highlighting in these projects the following aspects: thematic; concept; vocation for prevention or criminalization. As main results, it was found that most of the bills were built from the year 2020. It was also identified that there is a consensus regarding the concept of fake news, in such projects, which concerns fake news with the intention of causing harm. Most of the projects analyzed were linked to the topic of Covid-19 or the topic of elections, showing how these issues are sensitive and must be protected from the damage that false news can cause. Finally, most of these bills do not find a solution to the issue of fake news other than criminalization, other aspects that could be considered, such as education for the prevention and confrontation of this phenomenon, are almost never mentioned.