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Twitter has been the subject of a major social media outrage in Brazil this Tuesday (April 11th), due to the lack of moderation in the platform regarding posts that support or encourage recent school violence in Brazil, which led to five dead people, four of them small children.
In an online meeting among Brazilian government officials and social media companies, a Twitter representative surprised many people – including other social media representatives (Meta, Google, TikTok, Kwai) – by saying that a profile bearing the picture a child murderer was not in violation of the platform's terms of use, since it was not a direct indication of a crime.
Twitter no longer has a government relations executive based in Brazil, one of its top 5 markets. Now the company's contact with Brazilian authorities is made through its Mexican office.
Sofia Schurig
The social media campaign "Twitter supports school massacres" is happening in Twitter itself and has made it to the site's trending topics, mysteriously disappearing after only a few hours, despite its growth.
According to Nucleo's analysis of Twitter data (while the API still allow us to collect data), as of 4 p.m. there were some 24,000 tweets with over 4.1 million views.
Celebrities, like the rapper Emicida and youtuber Felipe Neto, have shared a meme showing Twitter's logo embedded in blood.
— emicida (@emicida) April 11, 2023
After Elon Musk took control of the company and fired over a third of its employees, eliminating a large part of its moderation team, this type of extremist content apologizing for crimes against children and school employees has circulated freely on the social network.
The company's Policy on Sensitive Media, last updated in Jan.2023, prohibits the production and circulation of content with real images of violence.
Nucleo was unable to contact Twitter in Brazil, since the company has no press officers here anymore and the general press email returns only a poop emoji.
