In a vote in the National Congress, Bill 2630/2020 – known as the Fake News PL – provides for the regulation of content published on social networks and other digital platforms. A group of researchers, popular communicators and unions argue that it is necessary to go further: rethink the entire economic structure that allows the concentration of wealth in the hands of big techs, the large technology companies that control the digital market. The subject was one of the highlights of the 4th Festival of Trade Union and Popular Communication, held this Monday (24th) at Cinelândia, in Rio de Janeiro. The debaters indicated the importance of regulation and construction of public policies within the scope of the digital economy. One of the concerns is to decentralize the control and exploitation of the data generated when a person uses virtual spaces. “It is a fight against the concentration of capital. Data is the great gold of these times, so we need to have this understanding that we face big monopolies. And they profit a lot from our attention and our time”, said Viviane Rosa, journalist and coordinator of Intervozes. “When we think about data, everything is potentially transformed into wealth. This brutal concentration of wealth in the hands of a few conglomerates, more intensely than what exists in relation to traditional media, needs to be reduced. We have to rethink the construction of internet spaces as effectively free and responsible, where there is transparency in the relationships between the different actors. That we don’t have to be at the mercy of building wealth in which we don’t participate”, said Adilson Cabral, journalist and professor at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF). Communication in the outskirts The festival – promoted by Núcleo Piratininga de Comunicação (NPC) – also had a debate table on the production of content and information in the slums and outskirts. In marginalized places, with insufficient action by the public power and little attention from the traditional media, the communities themselves create means of informing and engaging in the struggle for adequate living conditions. This is the case of Jornal Maré de Notícias, founded in 2009 in the Complexo de favelas of Maré, in Rio, which has both a printed and online version. “We exist to mobilize residents to improve that environment. When we type Maré into internet search tools, the community appears as a synonym for violence. But Maré is not like that. If you go there, you will realize that it is a powerhouse. It is a community that creates, even when the government does not act”, evaluated the reporter Hélio Euclides. Social worker Ana Maria Leone has been running a program on Rádio Ativa, in Duque de Caxias, Baixada Fluminense, since 2019. Her job as a communicator is to discuss public and social policies through interviews. There is also space for the dissemination of cultural and artistic initiatives. Ana explains that, before being an active voice in advocacy to transform the community, she needed to change the way she saw herself. “I barely spoke. And I thought I was shy. Today, I know that I was a silenced woman for several reasons. And we think that it has no content, that it is inferior in relation to other people and shut up. When, in fact, we have a lot to contribute to people”, concluded Ana.
Agência Brasil
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