In the two days following the Federal Police operation against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies last week, the channels that make up Bolsonaro's digital ecosystem on YouTube deleted or made private more than 1,500 videos, this reported. Wednesday the OGlobo site
.
The volume is higher than that recorded in previous days, when less than 200 contents were deleted daily by accounts in this area.
The “cleaning”
was detected in the monitoring of the data analysis company
Novelo Data
, which monitors the behavior of far-right profiles on the social network, according to Globo.
Video
In the recording, the former president along with his former ministers calls to "do something" before the 2022 elections
According to this local media, the elimination of the videos was a measure taken by the channels themselves, and not motivated by an action by the platform or a judicial decision.
The strategy of pro-Bolsonaro influencers is recurrent
at times of operations against those investigated for attacks on institutions, and was also observed after legal setbacks by the former president and allies in recent months.
In July of last year, OGlobo recalls, the profile of deputy Gustavo Gayer (from Bolsonaro's party)
hid just over 200 videos
, including content that
mentioned the Superior Electoral Tribunal
(TSE) and ministers of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), after a trial in the Electoral Court that declared Bolsonaro ineligible.
Federal police raids on the headquarters of Bolsonaro's Liberal Party.
Photo: Sergio Lima / AFP
In the last wave, those with the most cancellations were the channels
ZangãoBlues
, by journalist Toby Cotrim, with 183 thousand subscribers, and
BolsoNews
BN, which has 323 thousand followers and an unidentified author.
Another channel that deleted videos is the
Conservador y Patriota
account , of former candidate for federal deputy and pastor Alberto Jubanski, with 163 thousand subscribers.
What were the videos about?
According to Globo, most of the deleted videos
deal with Brazilian political issues
and mention authorities, such as ministers of the Supreme Federal Court and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or
are aligned with speeches by Jair Bolsonaro
.
Globo was unable to recover the full videos deleted or made private, but
it was possible to verify the titles and descriptions.
Among the 524 videos deleted by the Cotrim channel, for example, part of the titles already pointed out attacks on Alexandre de Moraes, the judge carrying out the investigation into the coup acts of January 8, 2023. One of them called out to the followers of the channel with the text
“Demand the impeachment of Alexandre de Moraes.”
Magistrate Alexandre de Moraes.
Photo: Reuters
The account also deleted a post in which
it defended a general strike for the “auditable printed vote”
, carried out in the 2022 elections, and videos that targeted the STF.
There are publications in which Cotrim
suggests that Lula will not take office
or that
the Armed Forces have everything under control
, made in December 2022, in the middle of the coup groups and before the assault on the headquarters of the powers in Brasilia.
The channel also eliminated a series of publications with references to article 142 of the Constitution, used in recent years by Bolsonaro supporters
to defend military intervention
, although the constitutional text does not contain this provision.
In a note to Globo, Cotrim stated that the removal of his videos was carried out to comply with YouTube policies and coincided with the sanctions applied by the platform.
“My decision to make the videos private, or remove them from the channel, is simply to try to comply with YouTube's guidelines, which
increasingly limit my freedom of expression,
as well as that of other right-wing YouTubers,” he said, adding that “I do not there was pressure” from the PF and that his videos “are fully known to the authorities and it is very easy for them to recover them.”
Criticisms of the research
The profile of Alberto Jubanski, candidate for the 2022 elections in Paraná,
deleted 387 publications
after the operation.
One of the deleted videos, published on the 9th, made direct reference to the investigation into an attempted coup d'état.
In the title of the post, Jubanski asked: “Will they arrest the captain?”
Posts that pointed
to Lula's imminent arrest or impeachment
were also identified in the list of excluded content.
In one of those publications, from June of last year, Jubanski exchanged letters for numbers to circumvent the networks' moderation and even asked in the title: "Death3 of Lul4 and desperate STF ministers, what is happening?"
In other content, he stated that the “illegalities” of the arrests for coup acts
are “flagrant.”
Jair Bolsonaro, complicated.
Photo: Sergio Lima / AFP
The BolsoNews channel, created in 2020,
removed 316 videos from the air in two days
.
Some of the posts also mention the STF, Moraes and the TSE in their descriptions and titles, but there are no explicit attacks.
When contacted, Jubanski and the BolsoNews channel did not respond.
What is Bolsonaro accused of?
The Brazilian Justice is increasingly closing the siege around former president Jair Bolsonaro, whom it accuses of
his apparent coup attempt to prevent the inauguration of Luiz Ináicio Lula da Silva
in Brazil after the October 2022 elections.
The recent publication in detail of the preparations for an alleged coup attempt by the far-right leader and his closest allies
left the former president more exposed than ever
.
Video
The former president said on social networks: "On the last Sunday of February, the 25th, at 3 p.m., I will be on Paulista (Avenue) in a peaceful event in defense of our democratic State of Law."
Bolsonaro, who calls himself the victim of "persecution"
, was prevented from leaving Brazil on Thursday,
within the framework of operation "Tempus veritatis", the hour of truth, in Latin.
Others of his collaborators were subject to raids and some of them arrested.
Bolsonaro
called for a march in San Pablo on February 25
for people to defend him "peacefully" in the streets.
With information from oglobo.globo.com