Supreme Court Justice: removing news story from internet is censorship

Federal Supreme Court (STF) Justice Luís Roberto Barroso considered to be censorship the judicial decision ordering to remove news stories from newspapers and websites. For the justice, people who feel offended by certain stories may appeal to court, but they may not require to remove the stories from the internet.

The issue was discussed this Tuesday (Apr. 19) in the examination of an appeal made by a businessman from Rio de Janeiro to remove from the internet a news report from the Brazilian magazine Veja Rio that described him as "a mixture of lobbyist with promoter and party animal" for going to parties attended by celebrities. For the businessman's defense, the news report has no public interest anymore, because it has been published in 2013, and also used "malevolent" terms to refer to him.

According to Barroso, the special investigator for the case, most media outlets do not publish printed newspapers anymore, and they keep websites, whose content remains in the files to be accessed by users. Thus, the minister declared that censoring a text on the internet has the same meaning as censoring a printed material.

"In this case, the news article describes his personality and makes critical comments. I even think that they are not offensive. But to think that they could remove the written story, this would be censorship," reported Barroso.

The trial was suspended.

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta