Families, educators and authorities breathed a sigh of relief in Brazil when the school day ended last Thursday throughout the country and millions of schoolchildren returned to their homes without incident.
They had been with their hearts in their fists all day, fearful that someone would try to take advantage of the 24th anniversary of Columbine to emulate the massacre that marked a before and after in the United States.
Brazil is witnessing with horror and deep concern a new pattern in these lands, but deeply rooted in the United States: massacres perpetrated in schools by current or former students.
There have been nine cases in the last nine months in Brazil.
That is to say, in that very short period, almost half of the 22 cases of the last two decades that killed 36 children and teachers have occurred.
The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva describes it as an epidemic.
The most recent attack, on April 5, is not in that account because it was carried out by a mentally ill victim of a psychotic break, but it was brutal and the media reacted immediately: "The name and image of the perpetrators of the attacks have never They will not be published, nor will the videos of their actions”, solemnly announced that night the presenter of the main nightly news on behalf of Grupo Globo, the largest in Brazil.
One more step in a policy that already limited dissemination: before they published the identity and the photo only once.
Security forces stand guard in front of the private preschool where an attacker killed four children with a knife, in Blumenau, Santa Catarina State, southern Brazil, on April 5, 2023. ANDERSON COELHO (AFP)
The horror caused hours before by the murder of four children in a kindergarten in Blumenau, the city famous for hosting the Oktoberfest, was still very fresh.
Just a few days earlier, a 13-year-old student stabbed a teacher to death and injured four people in São Paulo.
The newspaper
Estadão
, the television channels CNN Brasil and Band adopted commitments similar to those of Globo with the stated aim of following the recommendations of specialists to avoid glorifying the perpetrators of these massacres and neutralize the contagion effect.
Some 300 would-be imitators have been arrested, 750 profiles have been removed from networks and the government channel for anonymous complaints Escola Segura has received more than 7,000 notices.
A fever has been unleashed to buy metal detectors for schools.
And governors announce armed guards in schools.
The step is not unanimous among the big media.
The Folha de S.Paulo
newspaper
decided to publish the name and a photo of Blumenau's murderer, but without highlighting it.
Danila Zambianco, who is participating in an investigation into school massacres carried out by Unicamp University, in Campinas (São Paulo), maintains that "there is no silver bullet" to stop this complex phenomenon, but considers it essential to combat the deep-rooted contagion effect.
“These kids live in communities steeped in an extremist subculture and are inspired by, learn from, other attacks,” she explains.
She considers it essential to report the cases because, she emphasizes, “people have to know that this horror exists, but without giving the name and photo because many of these kids use hate speech and seek notoriety.
I'm in the newspaper!
I am famous!".
The Unicamp research team points to several factors that explain the increase in cases: the culture of violence, the pressure to take political issues out of the classroom, the greater online immersion brought about by the pandemic... Among their proposals, more control
of
the firearms, more network surveillance, laws so that technology companies assume more responsibility.
The attackers are usually white men.
Massacres broadcast live
The perpetrators of some of the most chilling massacres in recent years announced them to their followers on networks or even broadcast them live.
The discourse of annihilation of the other nests in the sight of millions of children and adolescents.
Four years have passed since the attack on the Brazilian school in Suzano, which in Brazil was a watershed (and macabre model).
The specialist says that at that time you had to go into the
deep web
(the back room of the internet) to find those forums that feed on hate, be it in the form of racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc., but she warns that "today the algorithm It takes you more easily [to those contents], now it is on the surface, on TikTok, on Telegram, on Twitter”.
What is the use of television, radio and newspapers erasing or hiding their names and faces if they are idolized online, where they often become a brand that thousands of anonymous profiles adopt as avatars?
In this line, the digital newspaper
Poder 360
announced to its readers that it will continue to provide this basic information "in a journalistic and sober manner."
“We believe that in the 21st century, in the digital age, it is impossible to avoid that type of disclosure,” he added.
Brazil —a country that consumes large doses of misinformation and false news— has been debating for years about regulating networks.
Faced with this crisis, the Lula da Silva government convened a meeting in Brasilia for the big technology companies.
The Minister of Justice and Public Security, Flávio Dino, was outraged when the lawyer who sent Twitter spoke to him about the terms of use: “I have made it clear that the terms of use are not here above the Constitution, of the laws and the lives of children”, he bellowed at a press conference.
The focus on the victims
No Notoriety is a campaign that for years has been pursuing in the United States what specialists recommend for Brazil: less loudspeaker for murderers and more eyes on the lives they have taken or altered forever.
On the day an Islamophobic extremist was sentenced to life in prison in New Zealand for killing 51 Muslims in two Christchurch mosques, then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said: "I hope this is the last time we have reason to hear the name of the terrorist".
She never uttered it in public.
Most of the media omitted it in the months following the attack.
And the judge ordered that the killer's face be pixelated in photos distributed in this island country.
In Norway, the far-right extremist who carried out the Utoya massacre was not erased, but from the day he killed 77 people (including 67 teenagers in a Labor Party camp), for the whole country he became "the perpetrator ”.
Abraji, the Brazilian investigative journalism association, points out that it still does not have "a crystallized position on the regulations to adopt" in the face of this relatively new phenomenon in the country.
The education journalists association has urged them to prepare some recommendations together.
Katia Brembatti, president of Abraji, defends self-regulation: “We are against any tax measure that means curtailing the work of the press.
In view of the coverage of the latest attacks in Brazil, some politicians defend that the names of those involved in the attacks on schools be prohibited.
We believe that it is the press that should analyze the situation and define the best practices in each case”.
If the attacker flees, take aim, broadcast his photo and his clothing will have enormous value in locating him.
Once the perpetrators of the massacres have been arrested or killed, the victims buried, the survivors remain.
Zambianco is among those in charge of giving a new meaning to the classrooms and patios that have been the scene of violent attacks so that students and teachers can resume their activities without being haunted by nightmares.
“We need to resignify the place”, he emphasizes.
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