texas-moody

Swift backlash for Brazil students using Twitter to target misinformation

  • Source: AP
  • December 15, 2020

"[Leonardo de Carvalho] Leal and his girlfriend of six years, Mayara Stelle -- both 22-year-old law students -- this year created a Twitter account with its stated mission to call out Brazilian websites for spreading 'hate speech and Fake News,' and torpedoing those sites’ advertising revenue...

They also mustered a legion of enemies. Vitriol poured in, directed toward their account, Sleeping Giants Brazil. Believing their identities are soon to be revealed after a ruling against Twitter, they expect they will be personally targeted, for lawsuits or worse.

Fear their families would be caught in the barrage because they had often accessed the account at their parents’ homes, they say, is why they left their lives behind and are choosing to make their identities known to The Associated Press and Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil’s biggest newspaper."

 

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