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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/world/americas/bolsonaro-social-networks.html

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The new rules in Brazil appear to be the first national policy that restricts how tech companies can control their sites, analysts say.

Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil in São Paulo on Tuesday. Credit... Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil is temporarily banning social media companies from removing certain content, including his claims that the only way he'll lose next year's elections is if the vote is rigged - one of the most significant steps by a democratically elected leader to control what can be said on the internet.

The new social media rules, issued this week and effective immediately, appear to be the first time a national government has stopped internet companies from taking down content that violates their rules, according to internet law experts and officials at tech companies. And they come at a precarious moment for Brazil.

Mr. Bolsonaro has used social media as a megaphone to build his political movement and make it to the president's office. Now, with polls showing he would lose the presidential elections if they were held today, he is using sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to try to undermine the legitimacy of the vote, following the playbook of his close ally, former President Donald J. Trump. On Tuesday, Mr. Bolsonaro repeated his claims about the election to thousands of supporters in two cities as part of nationwide demonstrations on Brazil's Independence Day.

Under the new policy, tech companies can remove posts only if they involve certain topics outlined in the measure, such as nudity, drugs and violence, or if they encourage crime or violate copyrights; to take down others, they must get a court order. That suggests that, in Brazil, tech companies could easily remove a nude photo, but not lies about the coronavirus. The pandemic has been a major topic of disinformation under Mr. Bolsonaro, with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all having removed videos from him that pushed unproven drugs as coronavirus cures.

"You can only imagine how hard it would be for a big platform to get a judicial order for every single piece of disinformation they find," said Carlos Affonso Souza, a law professor at Rio de Janeiro State University.

Mr. Affonso Souza said companies had 30 days to update their policies before facing penalties.

Social media giants denounced the new rules, saying they would allow harmful information to spread. Facebook and YouTube said they hadn't yet changed how they handle content in Brazil. Twitter declined to say.

Brazil's new internet rules are the latest effort in a larger fight that conservatives are waging against Silicon Valley. Politicians and pundits on the right have argued that tech companies are censoring conservative voices, and increasingly they have pushed laws making it harder for social networks to remove posts or accounts from their sites.

Florida passed a law in May that would fine internet companies that bar any political candidate from their sites, though a federal judge blocked it a month later. The governor of Texas is expected to soon sign a similar bill into law. Other countries have proposed similar legislation, but Brazil's new policy appeared to be the most significant measure to be enacted on a national level.

In a Twitter post, Mr. Bolsonaro's government said the policy "forbids the removal of content that may result in any kind of 'censorship of political, ideological, scientific, artistic or religious order.'"

Thousands of President Bolsonaro's supporters took to the streets of the capital, Brasília, on Tuesday to march to the Supreme Court. Credit... Dado Galdieri for The New York Times

In addition to limiting what sorts of posts companies can take down, the rules can also require tech companies to justify removal of any post or any account, even those involving the protected exceptions. The government can then force the companies to restore the post or account if it decides the removal was unwarranted.

Facebook said that the "measure significantly hinders our ability to limit abuse on our platforms" and that the company agrees "with legal experts and specialists who view the measure as a violation of constitutional rights."

Twitter said the policy transforms existing internet law in Brazil, "as well as undermines the values and consensus it was built upon."

YouTube said it was still analyzing the law before making any changes. "We'll continue to make clear the importance of our policies, and the risks for our users and creators if we can't enforce them," the company said.

It was unclear how the measure would affect content outside of Brazil.

Far-reaching though they are, the new rules probably won't last, according to political and legal analysts who track Brazil. Mr. Bolsonaro issued them as a so-called provisional measure, a type of emergency order intended to address urgent situations. Such measures expire in 120 days if Brazil's Congress does not make them permanent. Some members of Congress have already publicly opposed the measure, and five political parties and a Brazilian senator have filed lawsuits with the nation's Supreme Court seeking to block it.

But Mr. Bolsonaro told supporters at a rally on Tuesday that he would ignore rulings from one Supreme Court justice who has helped lead investigations into Mr. Bolsonaro's administration, alarming observers around the world that the president is threatening Brazil's democracy.

Mr. Affonso Souza, the law professor, said that the country's Supreme Court could strike down the measure before internet companies had to comply, but argued that it had set a dangerous precedent.

The president, he said, had created a way to ensure that disinformation "stays up on the internet and makes it easier for it to spread."

Mr. Bolsonaro has taken other steps to make online disinformation harder to fight. This month, for instance, he vetoed part of a national-security law that would have set criminal penalties for people found guilty of orchestrating mass disinformation campaigns.

Matthew Taylor, director of the Brazil Research Initiative at American University, said that Mr. Bolsonaro was using the internet policy to rally his supporters and distract from scandals around his handling of the pandemic and his clashes with the courts. Mr. Bolsonaro has portrayed this moment as crucial to the fate of his political movement.

Mr. Bolsonaro speaking to supporters during an Independence Day celebration in São Paulo. Credit... Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

"The timing was no mistake," Mr. Taylor said of the policy, which was enacted on the eve of protests that Mr. Bolsonaro had hoped would stir up support for his embattled presidency. "This is playing to Bolsonaro's domestic audience."

The Brazilian government said in its post on Twitter that it was "taking the global lead in defending free speech on social networks and protecting the right of citizens to freedom of thought and expression." The government did not respond to requests for further comment.

Mr. Bolsonaro has alarmed many sectors of Brazil in recent months with his increasingly authoritarian responses to a series of political crises, including a spiraling pandemic, economic travails, judicial investigations into him and his family, and falling poll numbers. He has attacked Brazil's electronic voting system as a reason to discount the coming election, and he has recently told supporters there are only three outcomes to his presidency: He gets re-elected, jailed or killed.

Rallying for Mr. Bolsonaro in Brasília on Tuesday. Credit... Dado Galdieri for The New York Times

In July, YouTube removed 15 of Mr. Bolsonaro's videos for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus. And late last month, YouTube said that, under orders from a Brazilian court, it had stopped payments to 14 pro-Bolsonaro channels that had spread false information about next year's presidential elections.

Brazil's Supreme Court has also been investigating disinformation operations in the country. Mr. Bolsonaro became a target of those investigations last month, and several of his allies have been questioned or detained.

This week, Jason Miller, a former adviser to Mr. Trump, was detained for three hours at an airport in Brasília, the nation's capital, where he had traveled for a conservative political conference. In an interview, Mr. Miller said the authorities told him they were questioning him as part of a Supreme Court investigation. "It was ridiculous," he said. "It really shows how much free speech is under assault in the country of Brazil."

Mr. Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist who won the presidential election in 2018, has long been compared to Mr. Trump. His recent actions - including the claims of a rigged election, skepticism of the coronavirus and complaints about Big Tech censorship - have deepened the similarities.

Mr. Trump lost his loudspeaker this year when tech companies kicked him off their sites for comments he made related to the storming of the U.S. Capitol in January.

Lately, Mr. Bolsonaro has sought to reduce his dependence on the major tech companies. On Monday, he urged people on Twitter and Facebook to follow him on Telegram, a messaging service with a more hands-off approach to content.

Daphne Keller, who teaches internet law at Stanford University, said conservative politicians have proposed laws like the Brazilian measure in the United States, Poland and Mexico, but that none had passed.

"If platforms have to carry every single thing that's legal, they'll turn into horrible cesspools that no one wants to use," Ms. Keller said. "It's a mechanism for the government to put their thumb on the scales to say what gets seen on the internet."

Lis Moriconi contributed reporting.

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Brazil's President Bans Social Networks From Removing Some Posts

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The new rules in Brazil appear to be the first national policy that restricts how tech companies can control their sites, analysts say. President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil is temporarily banning social media companies from removing certain content, including his claims that the only way he'll lose next year's elections is if the vote is rigged - one of the most significant steps by a democratically elected leader to control what can be said on the internet.

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Flight takes about 200, including Americans, out of Kabul

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An estimated 200 foreigners, including Americans, have left Kabul on an international commercial flight, marking the first large-scale evacuation since U.S. and NATO forces left Afghanistan last week.

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Film festivals like those in Cannes and Venice are hard to compete with in terms of glamour. But the power of the Toronto International Film Festival is in its audiences.

TIFF, a sprawling showcase of fall movies, generates enormous amounts of buzz not from formal red carpets but packed theaters filled with industry people, media and - this is key - regular filmgoers. It's the largest public film festival in the world. TIFF's top honor isn't a juried prize but the People's Choice Award, an early certification of near-certain Oscar contention. (Best picture winner "Nomadland" won it last year.)

But because of TIFF's reliance on crowds, this year's festival has been somewhat hampered. A year after turning to largely virtual screenings and drive-ins, Toronto's festival will be more fully in-person beginning Thursday with the premiere of the Broadway musical adaptation "Dear Evan Hansen." A full revival isn't there, yet. Downtown Toronto streets won't be closed off as usual, some venues won't be open, theater seating will be social distanced and the festival has brought back the virtual platform.

TIFF is back. But not all the way.

"We got through a hard time in the winter when we weren't really sure what kind of festival we'd be able to put on," says Cameron Bailey, the festival's artistic director and co-head. "It's just great that we know we can do it. We're back in Roy Thompson Hall and the Princess of Wales. We have drive-ins and we have an online platform. We were able to deliver the festival in every which way."

Cannes, Venice, Telluride and the upcoming New York Film Festival have gone forward this year with entirely in-person festivals, but Toronto is straddling normal and virtual - and keeping some of its pandemic innovations. That's partly due to circumstances.

Toronto endured one of the longest lockdowns over the past year. Indoor dining didn't resume until July in Ontario. Only last month did Canada reopen its border with the United States to non-essential travel. It was in those conditions that Bailey and fellow co-head Joana Vincente were preparing the TIFF's 46th edition.

"We got really comfortable with scenario planning," Bailey says. "That's what this year has been entirely about. There was never going to be one festival that we planned for. We had to plan for a bunch of different possibilities and, as things change, adapt and adjust."

The festival this year has been downsized - about 100 films will play, almost twice the number of 2020 but roughly half of a typical year. Some of the fall's top premieres - among them "Dune," "The Power of the Dog," "Spencer" and "The Last Duel" - opted instead to first unspool at Venice (though each will screen in Toronto, too).

Some of the most anticipated TIFF debuts include Michael Showalter's "The Eyes of Tammy Faye," starring Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield as the televangelists Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker; Stephen Karam's adaptation of his Tony-winning play, "The Humans"; Antoine Fuqua's Los Angeles crime thriller "The Guilty," with Jake Gyllenhaal; and "Dear Evan Hansen," Stephen Chbosky's musical with Ben Platt reprising his Broadway role as an anxiety-ridden, depressed teen whose encounter with another high-schooler who kills himself thrusts Evan into an awkward spotlight.

Chbosky premiered his 2012 breakthrough "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" at TIFF. This time, a different festival experience awaits.

"The one thing I've learned in the last year and a half is to rid myself of expectations. Nobody knows what anything is from one day to the next. So I just am grateful we were invited and I'm honored we were invited to open the festival," says Chbosky. "At this point, it feels like it's all icing."

The documentary program is one area that's as strong as ever. Among the films playing over the coming days: "The Rescue," about the 2018 Thailand cave rescue, by "Free Solo" filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin; Alison Klayman's Alanis Morissette documentary "Jagged"; the Dionne Warwick bio-doc "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over"; "Julia," a profile of culinary trailblazer Julia Child by "RBG" filmmakers Julie Cohen, Betsy West; and Stanley Nelson's "Attica," about the 1971 prison riot.

Liz Garbus ("What Happened, Miss Simone?") will screen "Becoming Cousteau," her portrait of the pioneering oceanographer Jacques Cousteau - a film made amid the currents of today's environmental concerns. Like many, Garbus grants that just a few months ago, she expected a very different COVID-19 landscape than the surge brought on by the delta variant. But the festival experience, done responsibly, is worth it to her.

"Even though we have some safety measures and maybe the festivals are a little quieter than they would be, there's nothing like showing a film to an audience," says Garbus. "We've all missed that and I think people are really hungry for it."

Those measures at TIFF include everyone entering an indoor venue - stars, audience members and staff - providing proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative test within 48 hours beforehand. Ticketing will be digital. Red carpets will be skeletal.

Some of the highest profile films playing at TIFF will only be screening in-person. (Among those are a not-yet-revealed Steven Soderbergh film and Kenneth Branagh's semi-autobiographical "Belfast" and Barry Levinson's up-for-sale "The Survivor," with Ben Foster.) Some digital screenings will be available across Canada. Satellite in-person screening will also be held coast-to-coast. TIFF's footprint is both smaller and larger than before.

TIFF, like other festivals, continues to balance its desire for equitable access with its core appeal to filmmakers and studios: causing cultural sensations inside movie theaters.

"We want to make sure that even when the pandemic is behind us that we're as accessible as possible. If there's a way to deliver at least parts of the festival online, then we want to do that," says Bailey. "The mission stays the same. We're still here to provide that experience of film that's going to transform people. That doesn't change. But the way we deliver it can change, and has changed for sure."

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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A Toronto Film Festival that straddles normal and virtual

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Film festivals like those in Cannes and Venice are hard to compete with in terms of glamour. But the power of the Toronto International Film Festival is in its audiences. TIFF, a sprawling showcase of fall movies, generates enormous amounts of buzz not from formal red carpets but packed theaters filled with industry people, media and - this is key - regular filmgoers.

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britney spears' father petitions to end her conservatorship - cnn

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Britney Spears' father petitions to end her conservatorship

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Britney Spears' fight to end her court-ordered conservatorship took an unexpected turn on Tuesday when her father and the conservator of her estate, Jamie Spears, filed a petition to end the arrangement.