A Brazilian law that seeks protect minors from addictive, violent and pornographic online content It came into effect this week, and experts call it a milestone in the protection of children and adolescents.
The topic gained strength in August, when the influencer Felipe Bressanim, known as Felca, published a video in which he denounced the sexualization of children and adolescents on the internet. The 50-minute video, which has 52 million views on YouTube, accelerated the approval of a bill that had been in the works since 2022.
He Digital Statute of Children and Adolescents It was approved by both chambers of Congress and sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in September. It went into effect on Tuesday.
According to the new law, Those under 16 must link their social media accounts to a legal guardian to ensure supervision. The legislation also bans platforms from using addictive features like infinite scrolling and automatic video playback. Digital services are also required to implement a effective age verification mechanism that goes beyond the simple self-declaration that the user is over 18 years of age, to prevent them from accessing inappropriate or prohibited material.
“We can no longer think that freedom does not go hand in hand with protection,” Lula said during Wednesday’s sanction ceremony. “Stop tolerating exploitation, sexual abuse, child pornography, harassment, incitement to violence and self-harm just because it happens in the digital environment.”
Maria Mello, head of digital at the Alana Institute, which advocates for children’s rights, said manipulative design aimed at keeping people hooked is particularly harmful to minors.
“It raises anxiety levels, it takes kids out of school, it causes vision problems,” he explained. Other problems are sexual exploitation, the promotion of self-harm, cyberbullying and the exploitation of the personal data of children and adolescents for commercial purposes.
Brazil is the most recent country to join a group of governments around the world looking for the best way to protect children on the internet. Australia implemented a social media ban — the first of its kind in the world — for children under 16 in December, and Indonesia announced earlier this month a similar measure that will begin this year.
Unlike a total ban, Brazilian law seeks to strengthen parental supervisionsaid Guilherme Klafke, law professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a study center and university. The new framework, he maintained, “assigns more responsibility to those who offer digital products and services that children and adolescents can access.”
Lincoln Silva, a 48-year-old businessman who was picking up his two children, ages 8 and 11, from school Thursday in Rio de Janeiro, welcomed the new legislation and said it will reduce access to information that people should not have at a certain age. “There is information that we should only have in adulthood,” he said.
Tech companies have made a series of announcements to coincide with the new law. WhatsApp reported last week that it will introduce parent-managed accounts, allowing legal guardians to decide who can contact the child’s account and which groups they can participate in.
Googlefor his part, indicated that in Brazil will use artificial intelligence to estimate whether a user is a minor or an adultin order to automatically block certain content. The users of YouTube Children under 16 will also need parental supervision to create or maintain a channel, the company added.
Companies that fail to comply with the new law could face fines of up to 50 million reais (about $9.5 million).
The new restrictions can generate frustrations among young users, warned Renata Tomaz, a communication professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation. He considered it essential to dialogue with children to make sure they understand why the law was implemented.
“We need to convey all these points that we consider essential to protect children and adolescents in a way that allows them to look at this law and say, ‘It’s good that they are protecting me.’”
With information from AP
