Social media is one important medium of disbursing information in today's world. Information shared on these platforms greatly affects that country in a negative or positive way.
One major problem today on social media is fake news. The US presidential election was thought to be influenced by fake news. Several civil unrests in countries like Turkey, India, Nigeria and other countries have been influenced by fake news. In a bid to tackle this, India enacted a law that punishes those spreading fake news on social media.
Following India's footstep, a Brazilian Senator has proposed a bill criminalizing the spread of fake news on the internet ahead of the country's presidential elections.
According to the bill proposed by Senator Ciro Nogueira, spreading false news on the internet or operating hoax-spreading bots should be given jail sentence of up to three years.
"The creation of the new criminal type will contribute to repress and prevent the disclosures of fake news," Senator Nogueira stated in the proposed legislation.
However, other media sources such as radio, newspaper, TV are not mentioned extensively in the bill and so would attract lenient penalties with prison sentences ranging between six months to two years in case they disclose fake news.
The Bill is awaiting the designation of a rapporteur in the Brazilian Senate and is hoped to be voted before the campaigning for the presidential election starts in August this year.
Sometime last month, Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) last month started working with internet giants Google, Twitter, and Facebook towards combating fake news in this year's presidential election.