Brazil's Supreme Court Reviews Social Media Regulation
June 5, 2025
Brazil’s Supreme Court resumed a review of social media regulation yesterday. The justices are examining four cases that focus on the accountability of online platforms for illegal content posted by users — the judges' ruling will create a precedent that will affect the country's tens of millions of social media users.
The review had been suspended last December, after a judge had requested more time to analyze the cases. The judges are evaluating whether platforms are required to proactively take down illegal content, or if they must only do so when ordered by a judge, reports EFE.
The review is taking place in parallel with the coup trial of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, whose followers prosecutors accuse of using social media to lie about the reliability of the electoral system and plot the downfall of successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reports AFP.
More Brazil
Three years after the deaths of the British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian activist Bruno Pereira, the Guardian joined the Indigenous peoples continuing their dangerous and often gruelling work to protect the rainforest.
The Guardian also launching today a major investigative podcast series about the men called Missing in the Amazon.
Brazilian prosecutors are seeking to annul a $180 million carbon offset scheme supporting conservation of the Amazon rainforest, which the state of Para signed last year with a coalition of major corporations and foreign governments. The prosecutors argue that the state government had failed to inform and consult traditional communities that would be impacted by the deal. (Reuters)
Regional Relations
In France, yesterday, Lula urged his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron to support a long-delayed trade deal between the European Union and the South American bloc Mercosur. (AFP)
“Guatemala, one of Taiwan's few remaining diplomatic allies, reaffirmed its support for the island today, during a visit by President Bernardo Arévalo, who said his people will walk together with their "brothers" in Taiwan.” - Reuters.
The U.S. Trump administration has tapped a career special forces operative with experience in counterterrorism operations, retired Air Force commander Michael Jensen, to oversee Latin America policy at the National Security Council, reports Reuters, noting that the appointment follows President Donald Trump’s publicly floated idea of sending troops into Mexico to battle drug cartels.
Mexico
The U.S. Supreme court spared two American gun companies from a lawsuit by Mexico’s government accusing them of aiding illegal firearms trafficking to drug cartels and fueling gun violence on the south side of the U.S.-Mexico border, reports the Guardian.
“In a unanimous decision written by Justice Elena Kagan, the court held that U.S. legislation that shields gun makers from liability in certain cases barred the lawsuit. Mexico, she wrote, had not plausibly argued that American gun manufacturers had aided and abetted gun dealers’ unlawful sales to Mexican drug traffickers,” reports the New York Times.
Mexican Indigenous activists hailed the election of Hugo Aguilar, a member of the Mixtec Indigenous group, to Mexico’s Supreme Court. While they celebrate the symbolic victory, some noted that Aguilar, who received the most votes of any Supreme Court candidate, “had long since shifted from his own roots as an activist to a figure much more closely aligned with the state, and involved in controversial mega-projects such as the Maya Train,” reports the Guardian.
“For some, Aguilar has become a symbol of hope for 23 million Indigenous people long on the forgotten fringes of Mexican society. But others fiercely criticize his past, and worry that instead of representing them, he will instead stand with the ruling party, Morena, that ushered him onto the court,” reports the Associated Press.
Investors are snapping up Pemex’s bonds, betting Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum can stabilize the state-owned oil company’s finances and restore credibility, reports Bloomberg.
Haiti
The U.N. food agency is appealing for $46 million for the next six months to help about 2 million Haitians in dire need of food, including 8,500 at the worst catastrophic level of hunger, reports the Associated Press.
Migration
Trump instituted a travel ban against nationals from 12 countries — under yesterday night’s presidential proclamation, individuals from Haiti would be fully restricted from entering the U.S. and travelers from Cuba and Venezuela would be partially restricted, reports the Washington Post.
Venezuela hit back by warning that the US is a dangerous place, reports the Guardian.
The Trump administration brought back to the United States a Guatemalan man who was wrongfully deported to Mexico, though he will remain in federal custody, reports the New York Times.
Cuba
Cuban government officials warned that new U.S. sanctions aimed at curbing the government’s money-generating international health assistance policy could lead to a new surge in migration, reports AFP.
El Salvador
A judge in El Salvador ordered Ruth López, a lawyer from a prominent human rights organization who has been an outspoken critic of some of President Nayib Bukele’s policies to be jailed for six months on illegal enrichment charges. The hearing, yesterday, was closed to the public. Observers say the case against López is retaliation for her work, reports the Associated Press.
A jury in El Salvador convicted three former senior military officers of murder in the 1982 killings of four Dutch journalists. The jury also condemned the government of El Salvador for delaying a resolution of the case for more than four decades, reports the New York Times.
Argentina
Argentine President Javier Milei’s office denied a bombshell series of reports published by journalist Hugo Alconada Mon that alleged the country’s intelligence agency had approved a new plan that could enable the surveillance of journalists, politicians and economists, reports CNN. (See May 26’s briefs.)