The fake attack posts aim to generate panic and hinder investigations, say experts

By Deborah Eli

PORTO ALEGRE, Apr 13 (Reuters) – After the attacks on a school in São Paulo and a nursery in Blumenau (SC), content about the fake new attacks received thousands of views on social networks this week. The posts use old images to claim that there have been recent attacks in Brazilian cities. The goal is to spread panic and stop the investigation, say researchers interviewed by Reuters.

One of them, viewed 330,000 times on Facebook, Instagram, Kwai, TikTok and YouTube, shows people running and claims that “five masked men attacked people today in a shopping mall in Sao Paulo”. However, as shown by Reuters Fact Check, the fact-checking division of Reuters, the video was recorded after a fire at a cinema in São Luís in March.

On TikTok, a video with the caption “church attack in the city of São Paulo” had more than 20,000 views, but the images come from a church attack in the United States in 2019.

Another post, with 30,000 views on Facebook and TikTok, talks about the death of a school principal in Ananindeua (PA) with the caption “Attack now at night in Pará”. The case took place in February and, at the time, the Civil Police indicated that it was a robbery.

Images of the attacks on schools in Aracruz (ES), in November, were shared with texts announcing “another attack”. More than 931,000 users have seen the posts on Facebook and TikTok. The Capixaba government said no attacks had been recorded in the state recently.

On Instagram, posts with 178,000 views denounced an alleged “invasion in a school in São Bernardo do Campo (SP), so much running”. The threat, however, had already been dismissed by the São Paulo government.

THREATS

In addition to disinformation, the platforms have been used for announcements of alleged planned attacks. Profiles with names related to “massacres” and “schools” also appeared — on Instagram alone, the report on Tuesday identified about 50 accounts with these characteristics.

Journalist Letícia Oliveira, a researcher of digital extremism, told Reuters she sees the movement as a coordinated campaign. According to her, the language and scope of recent threats have different aspects from the radical teen communities that encourage these crimes.

“These teenagers form subcommunities that adore school shooters, with images, music and videos. They don’t organize themselves like this, with this very high volume of threats, spread throughout the country and on various social networks,” he said.

The journalist recommends that threats be forwarded to the authorities rather than shared on the networks, “because this makes the movement organic and the population panics”.

The orientation is shared by Michele Prado, researcher at the Observatory of political debate in the digital environment, at the University of San Paolo (USP). According to her, it is common for false alarms to appear after attacks to overwhelm the police and disrupt investigations, making it difficult to identify real threats, which “favor the attackers”.

“They can be users of this subculture or teenagers who want to rebel. And there are also opportunists who want to monetize with views and that part of the population that still does not have concrete information on the subject, is scared and shares content with the aim of alerting other people,” he explained.

PLATFORMS

Some of the content found went offline after the report searched the platforms it was on. On Wednesday, Justice Minister Flávio Dino announced that the ministry could fine or suspend the operation of social networks in Brazil if they do not moderate content on violence in schools and share information with the authorities.

TikTok told Reuters that panic-promoting content about school violence “has no place on the platform” and that it works to “identify and remove content that may cause panic or validate hoaxes,” as well as report threats to authorities.

Kwai said “the platform doesn’t allow explicit violent content that normalizes or glorifies violence and that could encourage real-world violent attitudes,” and that it warned authorities.

Google, which owns YouTube, said it uses “machine learning and human reviewers to identify, rate and remove harmful content from YouTube, including content that incites violence.” The company said it has not yet received “any judicial requests to remove content related to incidents of school bombings” and is cooperating with the authorities.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said it does not allow violence to spread on its platforms and said it would remove content supporting those engaged in such activities. Also according to the company, “content about potential future violent attacks that seek to alert people, even if they don’t violate policies,” is “subject to fact-checking” by partners – Reuters has partnerships with Meta and TikTok to fact checking.

The report did not reach out to Twitter. Since March, the company has been responding to press emails with a feces emoji.

Source: Terra

Rose

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