BRAZIL Trends and Developments Contributed by: Diego Sens, Pablo Figueiredo and Maria Clara Ponciano Pupulin, Figueiredo Sens Advogados
Figueiredo Sens Av. Cândido de Abreu 776 9th Floor, World Business Building Centro Cívico Curitiba – PR 80530-000 Brazil Tel: +55 41 3239 2538 Email: controle@figueiredosens.com.br Web: www.figueiredosens.com.br
Extrajudicial notification becomes the new liability trigger The most operationally disruptive element of the deci- sion is the elimination of judicial intermediation for most categories of illegal content. Under the previ- ous Article 19 regime, platforms could only be held civilly liable after receiving a specific court order. This created a clear procedural filter: no court order meant no liability. The June 2025 ruling inverts this logic for all con- tent except defamation. Platforms must now remove content upon receiving extrajudicial notification from affected individuals or their legal representatives. Civil liability may attach if, after valid notice from the affect- ed party, the platform fails to act and the content is deemed illegal. Crimes against honour remain under Article 19. Private messaging, email, and private meetings remain under the previous Article 19 regime. The Court estab- lished that platforms are liable under Article 21 of the Marco Civil for damages arising from third-party con- tent that involves illegal acts in publicly accessible spaces. Three new exposure vectors that platforms must manage This creates three new exposure vectors that did not exist before June 2025. First, any Brazilian user or their attorney can now notify a platform of allegedly illegal content through internal reporting mechanisms or registered mail. If the platform fails to remove the
Content Moderation Liability After Brazil’s Supreme Court Ruling How the June 2025 decision creates new risks for social media platforms On 26 June 2025, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court concluded one of the most consequential digital regulation rulings of the decade. By an 8-3 vote, the Court declared Article 19 of the Marco Civil da Inter- net partially unconstitutional. This decision eliminates the judicial order requirement that had protected plat- forms from liability for user-generated content since 2014. The ruling fundamentally redefines how platforms must manage content within Brazil’s 170 million-user digital ecosystem. The Court rejected the “mere con- duit” framework that treated platforms as passive intermediaries. Instead, it established a new doctrine that treats platforms as essential components of the public sphere with constitutional obligations to protect fundamental rights. This shift places Brazil alongside the European Union in moving from reactive liability to proactive duty-of- care models. However, Brazil employs a distinctly dif- ferent enforcement mechanism: collective litigation with the potential for automatic, direct compensation per user. For companies operating Meta, X, TikTok, YouTube, and other user-generated content platforms in Brazil, the ruling creates immediate operational and financial exposure.
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