Thread by @EFF

There has been minimal discussion in Brazil about the impact of the #PLFakeNews bill on other tools and services such as Telegram, Signal, or iMessage. eff.org/deeplinks/2020…

The #PLFakeNews bill in Brazil wrongly assumes that only messages that become widely forwarded need to be traceable, regardless of whether the distribution of the message was done maliciously or not.

Forwarding a popular message does not mean you should automatically be under suspicion.

The line between originating and forwarding messages can be blurred either by the government, leading to overzealous policing, or in the public's eyes, leading to self-censorship. The latter also creates a serious concern for freedom of expression.

The fact that a person who forwarded content by any means other than an app’s forwarding interface could be wrongly viewed as or assumed to be the author. People could be framed as authors of content that they were not actually involved in creating.#PLFakeNews:

People could also be more frightened about sharing information if they think it’s more likely that someone will try to punish them for their role in forwarding a message (which is a disproportionate measure for the huge majority of innocent users of messaging systems).

In some cases, the fact that a person forwarded something could be extra-sensitive even when the forwarded item is not illegal, e.g. when someone who made a threat wants to punish someone for forwarding the threat, or when someone wants to punish a leaker for leaking something.

The bill ignores the fact that data minimization is essential in every privacy-by-design system, and is a key component of Brazil’s data protection law. #PLFakeNews:

Such changes move companies away from the privacy-focused engineering and data minimization principles that should characterize secure private messaging apps.
eff.org/deeplinks/2020…