Prejudice Against Being Prejudiced: Racist Speech and the Specter of Seditious Libel in Brazil
2015; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 20; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/10811680.2015.986414
ISSN1532-6926
Autores Tópico(s)Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection
ResumoAbstractRace is very important in Brazil, but only because it is not supposed to be important. Brazilian conventional wisdom holds that the country is a racism-free “racial democracy,” yet the enduring presence of racism in Brazil forces the law to fight to protect the country's racism-free image. The purpose of this article is to analyze Brazil's laws against racist speech. The central argument is that these laws treat racist speech as an affront to Brazil's national identity, and, therefore, these laws follow the same philosophy as seditious libel. A corollary argument is that Brazil's laws against racist speech have the potential to chill speech — particularly speech on social media — about important matters of public concern involving race. To make these arguments, the article will provide a comparative analysis of these laws with U.S. theory and jurisprudence regarding racist speech. NotesWorld Cup Host Brazil Tackles Issue of Racism in Soccer, PBS NewsHour Extra, June 11, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/2014/06/world-cup-host-brazil-tackles-issue-of-racism-in-soccer/.Dilma Rousseff Lifts the World Cup trophy and Says: “We’re Ready to Give the World a Wonderful Show,” World Cup Portal: Brazilian Federal Government Website on the 2014 FIFA World Cup, June 2, 2014, http://www.copa2014.gov.br/en/noticia/dilma-rousseff-lifts-world-cup-trophy-and-says-were-ready-give-world-a-wonderful-show.See Danilo Macedo, Rousseff Rebukes Racism Against Footballer Tinga, Agência Brasil, Feb. 13, 2014, http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/print/903888.See Trending: Brazil's Controversial World Cup Substitution, BBC News, Nov. 29, 2013, available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-25152561.See id.See Andrew Downie, Brazil to Probe FIFA in Racism Case Ahead of World Cup Draw, Reuters, Dec. 2, 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/02/us-soccer-brazil-fifa-idUSBRE9B10YZ20131202.Trending, supra note 4.See Mariana Barbosa, Brancos e Ricos são Maioria na Torcida do Brasil no Mineirão, Diz Datafolha, Folha de São Paulo, June 29, 2014, available at http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2014/06/1478120-brancos-e-ricos-sao-maioria-na-torcida-do-brasil-no-mineirao-diz-datafolha.shtml.See Tom Phillips, Brazil Census Shows African-Brazilians in the Majority for the First Time, The Guardian, Nov. 17, 2011, available at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/17/brazil-census-african-brazilians-majority.See Simon Romero, Neymar's Injury Sidelines Effort to End World Cup Racism, N.Y. Times, July 7, 2014, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/world/americas/neymars-injury-sidelines-effort-to-end-world-cup-racism.html.See John Burdick, Blessed Anastácia: Women, Race, and Popular Christianity in Brazil (1998) (discussing the ramifications of the 1970s movimento negro (“black movement”) on getting Afro-Brazilian politicians elected to federal office and creating institutes for the study and advancement of Afro-Brazilian culture); Sales Augusto dos Santos & Laurence Hallewell, Historical Roots of the “Whitening” of Brazil, 29 Latin Am. Perspectives 61 (2002) (discussing the post-colonial policy of accepting white European immigrants to “whiten” the population of freed slaves through miscegenation).See Alma Guillermoprieto, Samba (1990) (discussing the role of the predominantly Afro-Brazilian Samba Schools located in the slums of Rio de Janeiro in producing and popularizing Rio's Carnaval).For more information on the role of race in Brazilian cinema, see Robert Stam, Tropical Multiculturalism: A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema & Culture (1997).Racist speech, like other forms of hate speech, “[E]xpresses, advocates, encourages, promotes or incites hatred of a[n individual or] group of individuals distinguished by a particular feature or set of features, who[] are targeted for hostility.” Tanya Katerí Hernández, Hate Speech and the Language of Racism in Latin America: A Lens for Reconsidering Global Hate Speech Restrictions and Legislation Models, 32 U. Pa. J. Int’l L. 805, 807 (2011). The analysis in this article focuses exclusively on racist speech because it is the subset of the broad field of hate speech that is of greatest significance to Brazilian law. This choice has been made to distance the article from the critical legal literature that almost exclusively uses the term “hate speech,” although the value of such scholarship in challenging and refining traditionalist jurisprudence on free speech with regard to racism is certainly recognized.Rodney A. Smolla, Free Speech in an Open Society 151–52 (1992) (emphasis original).Mari J. Matsuda et al., Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment 74 (1993); Clay Calvert, Hate Speech and Its Harms: A Communication Theory Perspective, 47 J. Comm. 4 (1997).See generally Snyder v. Phelps, 131 S.Ct. 1207 (2011) (holding that the family members of a dead soldier could not claim damages for intentional infliction of emotion distress pursuant to protests by the Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church at that soldier's funeral with signs reading, among other slogans, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”); R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992) (holding that a city ordinance banning threatening racist expression was unconstitutional for being both overbroad and underinclusive).See Joshua Azriel, The Internet and Hate Speech: An Examination of the Nuremberg Files Case, 10 Comm. L. & Pol’y 477 (2005); Elizabeth F. Defeis, Freedom of Speech and International Norms: A Response to Hate Speech, 29 Stan. J. Int’l L. 57 (1992); Rajeev Dhavan & Aparna Ray, Hate Speech Revisited: The “Toon” Controversy, 2 Socio-Legal Rev. 9 (2006); Robin Edger, Are Hate Speech Provisions Anti-Democratic?: An International Perspective, 26 Am. U. Int’l L. Rev. 119 (2010); Roy Leeper, Keegstra and R.A.V.: A Comparative Analysis of the Canadian and U.S. Approaches to Hate Speech Legislation, 5 Comm. L. & Pol’y 295 (2000).See Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (“[T]he best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment” (Holmes, J., dissenting).).See Danielle Keats Citron, Cyber Civil Rights, 86 Bost. U. L. Rev. 61 (2009); Yuval Karniel, Defamation on the Internet — A New Approach to Libel in Cyberspace, 2 J. Int’l Media & Ent. L. 215 (2008); Richard N. Winfield, Globalization Comes to Media Law, 1 J. Int’l Media & Ent. L. 109 (2006).Loretta Chao, Brazil: The Social Media Capital of the Universe, Wall St. J., Feb. 4, 2013, at B1.Id.See Paulo Golgher, Tchau Orkut, Orkut Blog, June 30, 2014, http://en.blog.orkut.com/. It is assumed that these Orkut users will want to continue using some social network, and Facebook appears to be the likely benefactor. According to a 2011 Nielsen survey, Facebook surpassed Orkut in number of users in September 2011, with 30.9 million compared to Orkut's 29 million. See Ricardo Geromel, Facebook Surpasses Orkut, Owned by Google, In Numbers of Users in Brazil, Forbes, Sept. 14, 2011, available at http://www.forbes.com/sites/ricardogeromel/2011/09/14/facebook-surpasses-orkut-owned-by-google-in-numbers-of-users-in-brazil/.See Joshua Braun & Tarleton Gillespie, Hosting the Public Discourse, Hosting the Public, 5 Journalism Practice 383 (2011). Dawn Nunziato contends that these platforms have become so powerful that the law should treat them as if they were designated public forums. Dawn C. Nunziato, Virtual Freedom: Net Neutrality and Free Speech in the Internet Age 41 (2009); Dawn C. Nunziato, The Death of the Public Forum in Cyberspace, 20 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 1115 (2005).See Danielle Keats Citron, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace (2014); Mary Anne Franks, Unwilling Avatars: Idealism and Discrimination in Cyberspace, 20 Colum. J. Gender & L. 224 (2011).Data: GDP, PPP, The World Bank, available at http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD/countries/order%3Dwbapi_data_value_2012%20wbapi_data_value%20wbapi_data_value-last?order=wbapi_data_value_2012%20wbapi_data_value%20wbapi_data_value-last&sort=desc&display=default.Officials: G-20 to Supplant G-8 as International Economic Council, CNN, Sept. 24, 2009, available at http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/24/us.g.twenty.summit/index.html; Lex Rieffel, The G-20 Summit: What's It All About?, Brookings Inst., Oct. 27, 2008, available at http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2008/10/27-governance-rieffel#.See, e.g., G. Reginald Daniel, Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States: Converging Paths? (2006); Carl N. Degler, Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States (1971); George Reid Andrews, Brazilian Racial Democracy, 1900–90: An American Counterpoint, 31 J. of Contemp. Hist. 483 (1996); Stanley R. Bailey, Group Dominance and the Myth of Racial Democracy: Antiracism Attitudes in Brazil, 69 Am. Sociological Rev. 728 (2004); Mala Htun, From “Racial Democracy” to Affirmative Action: Changing State Policy on Race in Brazil, 39 Latin Am. Research Rev. 60 (2004); Thomas E. Skidmore, Bi-Racial U.S.A. vs. Multi-Racial Brazil: Is the Contrast Still Valid?, 25 J. Latin Am. Stud. 373 (1993); Thomas E. Skidmore, Race and Class in Brazil: Historical Perspectives, 20 Luso-Brazilian Rev. 104 (1983); Thomas E. Skidmore, Racial Mixture and Affirmative Action: The Cases of Brazil and the United States, 108 Am. Hist. Rev. 1391 (2003).See Guillermo O’Donnell, Democracy, Agency, and the State: Theory with Comparative Intent (2010); Atilio A. Borón, Latin America: Constitutionalism and the Political Traditions of Liberalism and Socialism, in Constitutionalism and Democracy: Transitions in the Contemporary World 345 (Douglas Greenberg, Stanley N. Katz, Melanie Beth Oliviero & Steven C. Wheatley eds., 1993); Walter F. Murphy, Constitutions, Constitutionalism, and Democracy, in Constitutionalism and Democracy, supra.See Skidmore, Race and Class in Brazil, supra note 28, at 107.Gilberto Freyre, Casa-Grande e Senzala 51a edição revista 30 (2006/1933).A senzala is the stable-like house found on many Brazilian plantations (or fazendas) in which slaves lived.Freyre, supra note 31, at 160.Id.Teun A. van Dijk, Racism and Discourse in Spain and Latin America 85 (2005).See Skidmore, Race and Class in Brazil, supra note 28, at 107.The debate over the concept of “racial democracy” in Brazil is vast and beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that scholars generally agree that racial democracy is a myth that has been debunked by the many forms of racial discrimination that still exist in Brazil, such as the fact that Afro-Brazilians are on the whole much poorer than white Brazilians. See Andrews, supra note 28, at 496; Bailey, supra note 28, at 731; Htun, supra note 28 at 61.van Dijk supra note 35, at 136.Ana Maria Lacerda Teixeira Pires, El Prejuicio Racial en Brasil: Medidas Comparativas, 22 Psicologia & Sociedade 32, 35 (2010).van Dijk supra note 35, at 31.Id. at 134.See Henry Chu, A New Color in Brazil TV, L.A. Times, Jan. 12, 2006, available at http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jan/12/world/fg-blacktv12.See Bernd Reiter & Gladys L. Mitchell, The New Politics of Race in Brazil, in Brazil's New Racial Politics (Bernd Reiter & Gladys L. Mitchell eds., 2010).According to Minority Rights Group International, as of February 2008, “The majority of Afro-Brazilians, 78 per cent, live[d] below the poverty line compared to 40 per cent of whites, and the life expectancy of African-descendants [was] only 66 years compared to 72 years for European-descendants. Half of all blacks [were] illiterate, while less than 20 per cent of whites [were] unable to read.” Minority Profile: Afro-Brazilians, World Directory of Minorities, available at http://www.minorityrights.org/?lid= 5285&tmpl=printpage.See Seth Racusen, The Ideology of the Brazilian Nation and the Brazilian Legal Theory of Racial Discrimination, 10 Soc. Identities 775 (2004).Florestan Fernandes, O Negro no Mundo dos Brancos 42 (1972).Bailey, supra note 28, at 730.Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil, in Biblioteca Digital da Câmara dos Deputados (3d ed. 2010) (English version), available at http://bd.camara.gov.br/bd/bitstream/handle/bdcamara/1344/constituicao_ingles_3ed.pdf?sequence=7 (hereinafter Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil).The discussion herein will focus solely on the parts of the constitution that outline citizens’ right to free speech and right to be free from racism.Id. Preamble.Id. art. 1.Id. art. 3.Id. art. 5, § X.Id. art. 5, § XLI (emphasis added).Id. art. 7, §§ XXX, XXXI (emphasis added).Id. art. 5, § XLII (emphasis added). The term “non-bailable” (in Portuguese inafiançável e imprescritível) means that a person arrested for racism does not have a legal right to bail. Rather, it is up to the judge as to whether the accused can be released on bail.Vernallia R. Randall, Race, Racism and the Law, Race, Racism and the Law Blog (Apr. 24, 2012) http://racism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1770:race-racism-and-the-law&catid=175&Itemid=101.Constitution of Brazil, art. 5, § IV.Id. art. 5, § IX.Id. art. 220, ¶ 1.Id. ¶ 2.Cf. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973) (holding that “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” protects speech from being considered obscene).See Flávia Piovesan, Direitos Humanos e o Direito Constitucional Internacional 10 (7th ed. 2006).See, e.g., Henry F. Carey, The Longue Duree of NGOs Promoting and Monitoring Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in a Divided Global Society, in, Sustaining Human Rights in the Twenty-First Century: Strategies from Latin America (Katherine Hite & Mark Ungar eds., 2013).Lei do Racismo, Lei No 7.716 (Jan. 5, 1989), available at http://www.amperj.org.br/store/legislacao/leis/L7716_racismo.pdf.Id. art. 1 (emphasis added).Id. art 4.Id. art 11.Id. art. 20. This is the interpretation of Article 20 after it was strengthened in the 1997. See Lei No 9.459 (May 13, 1997), available at http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/l9459.htm.Id. art. 1, § I. This proscription — whose specificity gives it the ring of an unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech among U.S. legal ears — may be due to a confluence of at least two factors. First, Nazis did flee to Brazil following World War II; see Gibby Zobel, The Brazilian Ranch Where Nazis Kept Slaves, BBC News Magazine, Jan. 20, 2014, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25815796. Second, following World War II, Brazilian political and intellectual elites were influenced by their counterparts in France, thereby making it possible that anti-Nazi sentiments diffused into Brazilian law and politics; see Robert Stam & Ella Shohat, Variations on an Anti-American Theme, 5 The New Centennial Rev. 141 (2005).Id. art. 1, § II.Etatuto de Igualidade Racial, Lei No 12.288 (July 20, 2010), available at http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2007–2010/2010/Lei/L12288.htm.Id. art. 2.Id. art. 26.Id.Id. art. 43.Id. art. 64.For a list of such major cases since 1985, see Diana Kapiszewski, Power Broker, Policy Maker, or Rights Protector? The Brazilian Supremo Tribunal Federal in Transition, in Courts in Latin America (Gretchen Helmke & Julio Ríos-Figueroa eds., 2011). See also Joaquim Barbosa, Reflections on Brazilian Constitutionalism, 12 UCLA J. Int’l L. & Foreign Aff. 181, 189 (2007).Because stare decisis does not exist de jure in Brazil, the country lacks not only a body of canonical cases from which to conduct common-law legal analyses, but also any sort of public or private database from which to search through cases by issue. The cases analyzed herein were chosen by conducting searches on LexisNexis, ProQuest and Factiva for stories in Brazilian media that contained the words “racismo” and “tribunal.” The theory behind this methodology is that since thousands of cases get heard at every level of the Brazilian judiciary — the STF alone can hear more than 100,000 cases each year, see Daniel M. Brinks, Judicial Reform and Independence in Brazil and Argentina: The Beginning of a New Millennium?, 40 Tex. Int’l L. J. 595, 614 (2005)—the most significant cases on racism in Brazil will be the ones that the news media deem most salient. The Ellwanger, Lei do Racismo, Lei No 7.716 (Jan. 5, 1989); Orkut, Ação Penal 2005.01.1.076701–6 (TJDFT 2008); and Ceresa, Processo No. 001/2.13.0065441–2 (CNJ:.0292701–80.2013.8.21.0001) (TJRS June 4, 2014), cases, discussed infra, were discovered using this methodology. After these cases were discovered within Brazilian news media, searches were conducted on Google Brasil (www.google.com.br) for the official court opinions. The Tiririca case, Sony Music Entertainment Brasil Ind. e Comércio Ltda. v. Centro de Articulação de Populações Maginalizadas et al, 2005.005.00060 (TJRJ 2006), also discussed infra, was discussed in Katerí Hernández, supra note 14, which primed a search for the official opinion of that case.Habeas Corpus 82.424–2 (STF 2003), available (in Portuguese) at http://redir.stf.jus.br/paginadorpub/paginador.jsp?docTP=AC&docID=79052.Brazil's three southern-most states, but especially Rio Grande do Sul, are known for their high number of descendants of German immigrants. Ellwanger was of German heritage.Siegfried Ellwanger Castan, Holocausto: Judeu ou Alemão: Nos bastidores da mentira do século (1987).Lei do Racismo, Lei No 7.716 (Jan. 5, 1989).According to the 1973 Fleury Law, first-time offenders can receive a greatly reduced sentence for up to the most serious felonies at a judge's discretion. Lei Fleury, Lei No 5.941 (Nov. 22, 1973), available at http://www.jusbrasil.com.br/legislacao/103329/lei-fleury-lei-5941–73.Constitution of Brazil, Art. 5 § LXVIII.The Portuguese title for a person who serves as a judge on the STF is “Ministro,” which could be translated either as its direct cognate “Minister,” or as its correlative cognate “Justice.” “Justice” will be used herein.Habeas Corpus 82.424–2, at 898 (STF 2003). The Ellwanger decision available online has three sets of page numbers. The numbers that appear in bold in the upper right-hand corner of the pages of the decision are cited herein. Justice Nelson Jobim cited the same passage: Habeas Corpus 82.424–2, at 719 (STF 2003). There is no uniform citation manual for Brazilian law, see N.Y.U. Law School, Guide to Foreign and International Legal Research Citations (2006), available at http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/upload_documents/Final_GFILC_pdf.pdf.Id. at 573.Id. at 583.See Leonard W. Levy, Emergence of a Free Press (1985); Harry Kalven, Jr., The New York Times Case: A Note on “The Central Meaning of the First Amendment,” 1964 Sup. Ct. Rev. 191; William T. Mayton, Seditious Libel and the Lost Guarantee of a Freedom of Expression, 84 Colum. L. Rev. 91 (1984).Interestingly, despite his dissenting vote, Justice Alves was put in charge of editing the opinion of the court. This practice marks a point of departure from U.S. Supreme Court procedure, where the chief justice or most senior associate justice will assign the court opinion to a justice who is among the winning coalition. “Editing” here because the job is just that: editing, as opposed to writing. The 488-page official court opinion is a collection of individually opinions written by each justice, as well as transcripts of dialogue between Justices.Habeas Corpus 82.424–2, at 544–56 (STF 2003) (Alves, J., dissenting).Id. 672 (Aurélio, J., dissenting), 674 (Britto, J., dissenting). For discussions of the important element of likelihood to cause tangible harm in determining whether speech should be punished, see Smolla, supra note 15, at 166; Frederick Schauer, Intentions, Conventions and the First Amendment: The Case of Cross-Burning, 2003 Sup. Ct. Rev. 197, 208–09; William Van Alstyne, A Graphic Review of the Free Speech Clause, 70 Calif. L. Rev. 107, 133 (1982).395 U.S. 444 (1969).Habeas Corpus 82.424–2, at 674 (STF 2003) (Britto, J., dissenting).Id. at 689 (Velloso, J., concurring).Id. at 889 (Aurélio, J., dissenting).Constitution of Brazil, Art. 5 § X.Sony Music Entertainment Brasil Ind. e Comércio Ltda. v. Centro de Articulação de Populações Maginalizadas et al, 2005.005.00060 (TJRJ 2006).Interestingly, Tiririca (pronounced chee-ree-REE-ca) successfully campaigned for a seat in Brazil's lower house of congress. His message to voters was: “What does a Congressman do? The truth is that I don't know. But vote for me and I’ll tell you.” His rhyming campaign slogan was: “Com Tiririca, pior não fica,” “With Tiririca, it can't get any worse.” Atila Timbo, Propaganda Eleitoral do Tiririca, YouTube (Dec. 20, 2010), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myWRb0IWPFY.However, the court also ruled that defendants Tiririca and Sony Music Entertainment Brasil would pay the 300,000 reais (about $150,000) in damages to a charity promoting the teaching of racial tolerance, not the plaintiff. Sony Music Entertainment Brasil, 2005.005.00060, at 2 (TJRJ 2006).Sony Music Entertainment Brasil, 2005.005.00060, at 5 (TJRJ 2006).Id. at 4.Id. at 7.Id. at 8.Id. at 6 (emphasis added).Id. at 9 (Prestes, J., dissenting).Id. at 10 (Prestes, J., dissenting).Id. at 9 (Prestes, J., dissenting).Ação Penal 2005.01.1.076701–6 (TJDFT 2008).Interestingly, Mello's name is misprinted in the TJDFT decision as “Marcelo Valle Vieira Mello.” No indication has been revealed as to why the name was misprinted, but the sure thing is that Vieira was as error. It is possible the confusion is due to Silveira and Vieira being very common surnames in Brazil.Brazil's system of basing admission to its public universities on racial quotas is controversial, See Julia Carneiro, Brazil's Universities Take Affirmative Action, BBC News, Aug. 28, 2013, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-23862676. In May 2012, the STF ruled that the quota system was constitutional. Recurso Extraordinario, 597285 (STF 2012).Ação Penal 2005.01.1.076701–6, at 3 (TJDFT 2008).Id. at 9.Id.Etatuto de Igualidade Racial, Lei No 12.288 (July 20, 2010).See Solange Spigliatti, Dois São Presos por Incitar Crimes de Ódio e Intolerância pela Internet, O Estado de São Paulo, Mar. 22, 2012, available at: http://brasil.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,dois-sao-presos-por-incitar-crimes-de-odio-e-intolerancia-pela-internet,851873; PF Prende Dois por Apologia à Violência na Web, Gazeta do Povo, Mar. 23, 2012, available at http://www.esmaelmorais.com.br/2012/03/pf-prende-dois-por-apologia-a-violencia-na-internet/; PF Detém 2 Homens que Planejavam Massacre contra Universitários, Agencia EFE, Mar. 22, 2012, available at http://veja.abril.com.br/noticia/mundo/pf-detem-2-homens-que-planejavam-massacre-contra-universitarios; PF Prende Acusados Incitar Crimes pela Web, Agência Estado, Mar. 22, 2012, available at http://g1.globo.com/brasil/noticia/2012/03/pf-prende-acusados-incitar-crimes-pela-web.html. In each of these stories, the fact that the two men published hateful messages on their Web sites appeared high up in the story (in the headline and lead paragraphs), while the fact that the Web sites contained child pornography appeared lower down in the story (at the end of the lead paragraphs at its highest, but in some cases in a later paragraph in the story, and always mentioned after the racist speech fact). Such reports are evidence that the Brazilian public takes the eradication of hateful messages online very seriously.Gabriello Furquim, Justiça Condena Réu que Mantinha Site de Ódio a Negros, Nodestinos e Gays, Correio Braziliense, Feb. 19, 2013, available at http://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/app/noticia/cidades/2013/02/18/interna_cidadesdf,350223/justica-condena-reu-que-mantinha-site-de-odio-a-negros-nordestinos-e-gays.shtml. The headline (“Court Convicts Defendant Who Kept a Hate Website Against Blacks, Northeasterners and Gays”) does not mention Mello's child pornography charge, and that the article lists that charge after his charges of racism and incitement in the article, once again highlighting the importance (at least in the eyes of the news media) of the racism charges over the child pornography charge.Id.RS: Estudantes Representam no MP contra Autora de Comentários Racistas, Terra, Sept. 2, 2013, available at http://noticias.terra.com.br/brasil/rs-estudantes-representam-no-mp-contra-autora-de-comentarios-racistas,3eed24f0930e0410VgnVC-M3000009acceb0aRCRD.html.Id.Id.Comentários de Jovem do RS sobre Negros Causam Revolta no Twitter, Globo, Sept. 1, 2013, available at http://g1.globo.com/rs/rio-grande-do-sul/noticia/2013/08/comentarios-de-estudante-do-rs-contra-negros-revoltam-redes-sociais.html (emphasis in original).RS, supra note 120.Id.Id.Processo No. 001/2.13.0065441–2 (CNJ:.0292701–80.2013.8.21.0001) (TJRS June 4, 2014).Id.Código Penal, lei No 2.848 (Dec. 7, 1940), Art. 120. This provision has no direct equivalent in U.S. law. Very rough parallels can be drawn between this provision and (1) the ability of courts in the United States to temporarily postpone or stay the execution of a sentence, see 24 C.J.S. Criminal Law § 2142; (2) jury nullification, see The Trial of John Peter Zenger, 17 Howell's St. Tr. 675 (1735); or (3) presidential pardons, see 28 C.F.R. §§ 1.1 et seq.Processo No. 001/2.13.0065441–2 (CNJ:.0292701–80.2013.8.21.0001) (TJRS June 4, 2014).Id.Id.New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 272 (1964); NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 433 (1963).For more information on the development and importance of social honor throughout Brazil's history, see Sueann Caulfield, The Changing Politics of Freedom and Virginity in Rio de Janeiro, 1920–1940, in Honor, Status, and Law in Modern Latin America (Sueann Caulfield et al. eds., 2005); Brodwyn Fischer, Slandering Citizens: Insults, Class, and Social Legitimacy in Rio de Janeiro's Criminal Courts, in Honor, Status, and Law surpa; Laura Sue Nelson, The Defense of Honor: Is It Still Honored in Brazil?, 11 Wisc. Int’l. L. J. 531 (1993); Donald Ramos, Gossip, Scandal and Popular Culture in Golden Age Brazil, 33 J. Soc. Hist., 887 (2000); Martha S. Santos, On the Importance of Being Honorable: Masculinity, Survival, and Conflict in the Backlands of Northeast Brazil, Ceará, 1840s-1890, 64 The Americas 35 (2007); Erica Windler, Honor Among Orphans: Girlhood, Virtue, and Nation at Rio de Janeiro's Recolhimento, 44 J. Soc. Hist. 1195 (2011). For a seminal theoretical analysis of the concept of reputation and how it is interpreted in different cultures as fungible (like property, for example in the United States) or fixed (like honor, for example in Brazil and Mediterranean countries), see Robert C. Post, The Social Foundations of Defamation Law: Reputation and the Constitution, 74 Cal. L. Rev. 691 (1986). Cf Peter F. Carter-Ruck, Comparative Defamation Law, 6 Int’l Legal Prac. 3, 6 (1981).Código Penal, Lei No 2.848 (Dec. 7, 1940), Art. 140 § III.Constitution of Brazil, art. 2.See Kalven, supra note 90; Allen E. Shoenberger, Connecticut Yankee Speech in Europe's Court: An Alternative Vision of Constitutional Defamation Law to New York Times Co. v. Sullivan?, 28 Q.L.R. 431 (2010); Rodney A. Smolla, Words “Which by Their Very Utterance Inflict Injury”: The Evolving Treatment of Inherently Dangerous Speech in Free Speech Law and Theory, 36 Pepp. L. Rev. 317 (2009). But cf. Alexander Tsesis, Burning Crosses on Campus: University Hate Speech Codes, 43 Conn. L. Rev. 617 (2011) (arguing that Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250 (1952), which upheld an Illinois group libel law, is still good law). See also AIDA v. Time Warner Entm't Co., LP, 772 N.E.2d 953 (Ill. App. Ct. 2002) (holding that an interest group dedicated to protecting the dignity of Italian Americans could not sue Time Warner and Home Box Office for violating the “individual dignity” of Italian Americans—as stipulated in the Illinois Constitution, Art. I, § 20 — by airing the hit TV show The Sopranos because it could not prove that the show caused a “distinct and palpable injury” to Italian Americans).Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 360 (2003).See United States v. Bagdasarian, 652 F.3d 1113 (9th Cir. 2011); Planned Parenthood v. American Coal. of Life Activists, 290 F.3d 1058 (9th Cir. 2002); Azriel, supra note 18, at 486.See Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969). See also Kent Greenawalt, O’er the Land of the Free: Flag Burning and Speech, 37 UCLA L. Rev. 925 (1990); Kent Greenawalt, Speech and Crime, 1980 Am. B. Found. Research J. 645.Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572 (1942).For some intriguing (if somewhat contrived) hypothetical scenarios in which the fighting words doctrine could be applied to punish acts of cyberbullying, see Clay Calvert, Fighting Words in the Era of Texts, IMs and E-Mails: Can a Disparaged Doctrine Be Resuscitated to Punish Cyber-Bullies?, 21 DePaul J. Art Tech. & Intell. Prop. L. 1 (2010).Schauer, supra note 93, at 205.Thomas I. Emerson, Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment, 72 Yale L. J. 877, 881 (1963).However, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476 (1993), that a Wisconsin law that enhanced a maximum penalty for aggravated battery due to the fact that the defendant's crime was racially motivated did not violate the defendant's First Amendment right to harbor racist views prior to committing the crime. The Court reasoned that enhancing the penalty for the crime due to the racist motive behind it was no different than anti-discrimination statutes that singled out discriminatory conduct for punishment based on the racist motives behind the conduct.See Van Alstyne, supra note 93.See Vincent Blasi, Holmes and the Marketplace of Ideas, 2004 Sup. Ct. Rev. 1, 44.John Milton, Areopagitica 32 (1644), available at http://books.google.com
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