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Brazil judge orders Facebook to cut ‘fake news’ on slain activist

A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ordered Facebook to remove fake news posted about slain black rights' activist Marielle Franco. Judge Jorge Jansen Counago Novelle, in Rio de Janeiro, gave the US-based giant 24 hours to pull "publications of false information with criminal content on the councilwoman Marielle Franco," the court said in a statement. Franco…

Handout picture released by Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies showing a banner reading “Who Kill Marielle and Anderson?” (in Portuguese) during a formal sitting at the Chamber of Deputies to mark International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims, in Brasilia, on March 22, 2018, attended by the sister and girlfriend of slain councilwoman Marielle Franco.<br />Before being gunned down in the centre of Rio de Janeiro, city councilwoman Marielle Franco built a career standing up for the many others living in danger of bullets and abuse. / AFP PHOTO / Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies / Luis MACEDO / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE – MANDATORY CREDIT “AFP PHOTO / BRAZIL’S CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES

A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ordered Facebook to remove fake news posted about slain black rights’ activist Marielle Franco.

Judge Jorge Jansen Counago Novelle, in Rio de Janeiro, gave the US-based giant 24 hours to pull “publications of false information with criminal content on the councilwoman Marielle Franco,” the court said in a statement.

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.

Two weeks after her apparent targeted killing, police have announced little progress in the investigation.

A false narrative emerged online in which she was accused of having been married to a drug gangster and receiving election campaign money from criminals. The 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.”

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