FACEBOOK FACES SUPREME COURT PROBE OVER AMAZON RAINFOREST ADS

Fri 05 March 2021:

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered an inquiry into the sale of protected areas of the Amazon rainforest via Facebook.

Brazil’s tip court ordered the enquiry after the classified ads were listed in Facebook’s Marketplace. The ads, which can be easily found by Facebook users, were uncovered as part of an investigation by the BBC, which discovered that the land for sale included areas belonging to indigenous groups.

The court urged the Brazilian government to “take the appropriate civil and criminal measures” to address the issue, with Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Luís Roberto Barroso extending a case brought to the court by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil to include an investigation into the ads.

Supreme Court Justice Luis Roberto Barroso was responding to a lawsuit filed by charities and opposition parties that accused the Brazilian government of failing to protect indigenous peoples from the coronavirus.

In his ruling, he said some of the areas advertised for sale on Marketplace, Facebook’s classified ad space, belonged to the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people, who had been exposed to the disease by illegal land-grabbers and left in a “critical situation”.

Facebook did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Last week the tech firm told the BBC it was “ready to work with local authorities” on the issue.

“The decision is based on a documentary broadcast by BBC News last week, which denounced the use of Facebook for advertising and marketing land in the Amazon,” said the Supreme Court in a statement.

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon surged to a 12-year high in 2020, according to government data published in November.

Environmentalists say Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has weakened conservation efforts and raised hopes that new laws would legalise the claims of land-grabbers.