Intermediary Liability in Brazil: The Intricate Path Ahead

Brazil's new internet intermediary liability regime is underway. The implementation of changes established by the Supreme Court includes notice and takedown mechanisms and duty of care obligations. Caution is crucial as these measures can create problematic incentives for enforcement overreach and over censorship of protected speech.  

The court in June issued a new decision clarifying elements of its 2025 finding that the previous liability regime was partially unconstitutional. The government also published in late May two presidential decrees that detail how the new rules apply. 

Under the new regime, social media platforms and other internet applications that curate or interfere with posts can be held liable for third-party content if they don’t remove it after being notified by the user seeking take down unless there's a reasonable doubt that the content is unlawful. For certain specific cases, like crimes against honor (e.g. defamation), platform liability still depends on failing to comply with a judicial order.  

For some serious crimes, like human trafficking and crimes against women, applications have a duty of care to remove related content immediately and can be held liable when systemically failing to do so. The precise limits of what constitutes a systemic failure are still unclear. There are also stricter rules for paid ads, boosted content, and bots. 

The previous regime, set by Article 19 of the law known as the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet (“Marco Civil da Internet” in Portuguese), sought to protect freedom of expression online by holding internet application providers liable for user content if they failed to comply with a judicial order to remove it. There were specific, limited exceptions to this rule, like the unauthorized disclosure of nude or private sexual images. This was meant to prevent providers from over-removal of user content to avoid legal action. Yet, the court found that this provision failed to sufficiently safeguard democracy and fundamental rights. 

We outlined the thorny context leading to this shift in Brazil’s intermediary liability rules, including Big Tech’s alignment with the far right and hurdles to approve platform regulation in Congress, through a proper legislative process. 

Brazil’s shift is part of broader discussions and changes in response to growing concerns over online harms and digital platforms’ abuses. However, responses focused on platforms’ liability of user-generated content carry important traps and risks—from entrenching dominant platforms’ power over the information flow to escalating arbitrary online surveillance and censorship. The path ahead must prevent this to the extent possible, and the new presidential decrees provide a mixed contribution towards this task. 

New Decrees: Strengths and Flaws  

The government published two decrees regulating the new regime set by the Supreme Court. One introduces changes to its previous regulation, the Decree 8.771/2016, detailing elements of the decision, including additional duties that the court only briefly addressed (Decree 12.975). The other regulates measures to