have been aggressively campaigning against the new bill, with the Google parent company placing an advertisement on its search homepage in Brazil as well as YouTube there. It also took out a full-page advertisement in the local paper Folha de S.Paulo to sway public opinion.
The US company promptly pulled the link, though Google defended its right to communicate its concerns through “marketing campaigns” on its platforms and denied altering search results to favor material contrary to the bill. Its critics say the bill needs wider debate because it was too hastily drawn up, allows censorship and will have the opposite result of rewarding those who post disinformation since the bill proposes that companies would have to pay content providers and copyrights on material posted on their sites.
“Such conduct could configure, in theory, abuse of economic power on the eve of voting on the bill by trying to illegally and immorally impact public opinion and the vote in Congress,” Justice Alexandre de Moraes said in his decision.