Speech by the Minister of the Secretariat of Social Communication of the Presidency of the Republic, Paulo Pimenta, during an event on Information Integrity - São Paulo, 05/01/2024

Brazil has the honor and pleasure of welcoming you all to this meeting, part of the program of the G20 digital economy group. We are 550 people from 50 countries, 5 continents, who meet today in São Paulo to reflect together on the challenges of confronting disinformation and hate speech, to promote and protect the integrity of information. Today is May 1st, International Workers' Day, and I wanted to start by saluting all the women and men who, with their workforce, work to build a fairer and more sustainable world.

“Building a just world and a sustainable planet” is exactly the motto that summarizes the objectives of Brazil’s presidency of the G20.

The G20 is not just the group of largest economies, bringing together 80% of global GDP, 75% of exports and around 60% of the world's population.

The G20 is currently the political and economic forum with the greatest capacity to positively influence the international agenda.

As President Lula recently stated, we are not suited to a world marked by the resurgence of conflicts, growing fragmentation, the formation of protectionist blocs and environmental destruction. Its consequences would be unpredictable for geopolitical stability.

Inequalities are at the root of the problems we face, or contribute to worsening them. We need a new globalization that combats disparities. The three priorities that Brazil presents represent the urgencies to achieve these objectives:

combating hunger, poverty and inequality;

the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development;

and global governance reform.

I would say that our topic today crosses these three dimensions. The changing scenario in the digital and informational environment over the last 15 years affects the fight against inequality, impacts the three dimensions of sustainable development and is determined by the limits of the current dynamics of global governance.

It is no surprise that, for the first time, the topic of information integrity is on the G20 agenda. This is a recognition that the impacts of disinformation and hate speech are enormous. We can mention a few:

Political and economic instability, which leads to extremism and violence and affects social cohesion;

Questions to the legitimacy of electoral systems, which generates a crisis of confidence in public institutions and the political system;

Denialism regarding climate change, reducing the global response capacity to this problem;

Decrease in society’s vaccination coverage and other consequences for public health;

Impacts on mental and physical health, especially of children and adolescents;

In addition to systematic cases of violation of individual and collective human rights and reinforcement of structural discrimination, such as racism and machismo.

We are facing a global challenge, which requires coordination between global responses and responses at the domestic level.

In the last month, several episodes have highlighted the tension between the platforms' private interests and the interests of different G20 member states. We understand that dialogue between States can help find balanced solutions to these tensions. And we see the G20 as a privileged space for this.

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Brazil's engagement in this agenda can be explained by several reasons, but I wanted to highlight three.

The first is that we understand that the right to reliable, consistent and accurate information is a fundamental pillar of democracy. And here it is important to highlight that President Lula is a staunch defender of democracy and democratic values. Since 1989, the President has contested six elections. He lost three, won three. The ballot box and the Brazilian people have always been sovereign. All of these elections were monitored and conducted by institutions that run the process with fairness and balance, especially the Superior Electoral Court. When, in 2018, the President was arrested and prevented from participating in the electoral process, he accepted the decision. He considered it unfair, but accepted the court decision. Democratic countries value their justice system, democratic people respect judicial decisions.

The second reason for Brazil's involvement is that disinformation, in our understanding, has contributed to serious events in recent years. Brazil has had more than 700,000 deaths from Covid-19. Researchers say that we could have avoided at least 400,000 of them if there had been no neglect in controlling the disease and delays in vaccination.

We have also seen numerous cases of women, especially black women, abandoning politics or having to leave social media because they are unable to withstand the hatred unleashed against them in coordinated attacks.

And we witnessed, on January 8, 2023, the invasion of the palaces of the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch and the Judiciary Branch. What happened on January 8 cannot be explained without three waves of disinformation that took place between 2020 and 2022. They spread serious lies about the electronic voting system and the Brazilian electoral process. Testimonies in recent months showed that that movement was linked to concrete efforts to promote a coup d'état in Brazil. Institutions acted, democracy resisted, but this history cannot be forgotten.

The third reason for us to invest in this agenda is a result of the first two: we believe that disinformation and hate speech affect the full exercise of individual and collective rights. And therefore, we do not see combating disinformation as opposed to freedom of expression. On the contrary, combating disinformation and hate speech strengthens freedom of expression, because it promotes access to information for society as a whole and protects the right to expression of minority groups.

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The Brazilian government has worked together to promote the integrity of information. We work in permanent partnership with the Federal Attorney General's Office, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Justice, the Federal Comptroller General and the Ministry of Science and Technology, facing misinformation regarding vaccines and public health. We dialogue with the Ministry of Human Rights, the Ministry of Women and the Ministry of Racial Equality, always looking for a common understanding that allows us to face the problem while protecting human rights.

Brazil is committed to a comprehensive approach that promotes a balance of rights. We believe in the value of information and transparency, and we maintain initiatives such as Brasil contra Fake and ComunicaBR to ensure that citizens have accurate information about the government and public policies.

We launched the Brazilian Media Education Strategy, built in partnership with the Ministry of Education, which combines teacher training, production of teaching material and various initiatives that allow the principles of the National Common Curricular Base to be disseminated, always in constructive dialogue with civil society organizations .

We believe that the integrity of information depends on strengthening public, community and private journalism. We are working on expanding the national public communications network in partnership with universities and federal institutes, which will triple the radio network and could double the number of television stations. We expanded the sustainability mechanisms of community broadcasters. And we are working towards a solid path to strengthen the sustainability of journalistic content producers.

We need to recognize the needs of large companies, but also small and medium-sized ones, and ensure that new mechanisms strengthen pluralism and diversity of sources for citizens. In a scenario of intense development of artificial intelligence systems, we need to guarantee due remuneration to all producers of information, knowledge and culture. It is journalists, scientists and artists who provide the fundamental raw material for AI.

From our point of view, in fact, Science and Technology also have a fundamental role to play in promoting the integrity of information. It is necessary to strengthen research, development and innovation in this field, reinforcing initiatives that already involve several research groups and INCTs and creating new ones. In this sense, we welcome the joint initiative announced yesterday by IBICT, Finep, Capes, CNPq and IPEA, which will work together to promote actions and initiatives to combat disinformation. And we reinforce the relevance of guaranteeing researchers’ access to platform data – which has been increasingly challenging.

Last but not least, we understand that it is essential to advance in the democratic regulation of digital platforms. The companies' business model favors the spread of misinformation and hate speech. Platforms need to take more responsibility to ensure that the digital environment is not used to disseminate illegal content. What is already a crime in offline life needs to be treated as a crime in the online environment. We cannot accept that platforms profit from the dissemination of lies and attacks that affect the rights of ordinary citizens, who have no way to defend themselves against coordinated actions.

Regulation must be balanced to promote and guarantee freedom of expression while protecting other fundamental rights of citizens. We understand that the European Union and the United Kingdom are references for recent legislation that go in this direction and should inspire global debates.

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It is with this diagnosis and this vision of comprehensive and democratic solutions that Brazil has acted internationally. Brazil joined the Information and Democracy Partnership, which brings together 52 countries, promoted this debate within the scope of Mercosur and signed a series of bilateral agreements, with countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom, to carry out joint actions to promote integrity of information. We are interested in strengthening direct cooperation with countries in the Global South, especially those that live similar realities to ours.

We are collaborating in constructive dialogues with the United Nations, UNESCO and the OECD. We understand that the Global Principles that will be published by the UN, as well as the UNESCO Guidelines for regulating platforms and the documents published by the OECD information integrity hub can greatly contribute to finding appropriate solutions to this problem.

It is in this spirit that we announce the decision to build a Global Initiative for Information Integrity on climate change. The initiative is being managed with the UN and UNESCO, and will value and involve existing networks of researchers, such as the Global Knowledge Network, linked to UNESCO, the Information and Democracy Observatory and the International Panel on the Information Environment, as well as other agencies of the UN system directly involved in tackling climate change. The proposal is to create a joint agenda until COP-30, in November 2025, to gather evidence on the impact of disinformation in relation to climate change and socio-environmental issues, and propose ways to overcome the problem. We will seek support from the various countries and organizations that can help build this initiative, and launch it in the coming months.

In the Brazilian government, this initiative will involve SECOM, the Ministry of the Environment, led by Minister Marina Silva, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Times are difficult, but we have good reason to be hopeful. The G20 countries, despite different understandings on the topic, have demonstrated openness to identifying common points in the information integrity agenda. We believe that the G20 needs to be the space to affirm the importance of humanity seeking peaceful and democratic political coexistence. To strengthen solidarity and empathy among all of us. And to truly promote a just and more sustainable world.

Thank you very much.