[Editor’s note: This case may set a precedent for further legal actions against Facebook as we are seeing a growing backlash against fake news and the big corporations responsible. Ian]
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Mercopress
Brazilian Judge Jorge Jansen Counago Novelle on Wednesday gave the US-based social media giant Facebook 24 hours to remove fake news posted about slain black rights’ activist Marielle Franco.
The ruling compels the company to pull “publications of false information with criminal content on the councilwoman Marielle Franco,” it was reported.
Franco was murdered March 14 and quickly hailed as an inspiring example of a black woman who had broken barriers by getting elected to Rio’s white-dominated city council. She spoke out against often brutal police raids in the poor favela neighborhoods.
There has been little to no progress in the investigation of her apparent targeted killing, according to police sources.
Unsubstantiated postings online portrayed Franco as having been married to a drug gangster and receiving election campaign money from criminals. These allegations, some made by another Rio judge on Facebook, have since been discredited.
Judge Novelle wrote that his decision targeted “propagation of crimes like slander against the dead, and hatred and racial and gender prejudice against someone who can no longer defend herself.”