“It is not clear how someone guessing her email password is our responsibility.” With a simple message on X, formerly Twitter, on December 20, multi-millionaire social network owner Elon Musk set Brazil’s easily combustible politics on fire. The “her” in the publication refers to Janja Lula da Silva, the Brazilian first lady who plans to sue the platform after a hacker compromised her account. Supporters of Bolsonaro took the opportunity to immediately attack Janja and praise Musk, today an icon of the world’s far right.
The case started on the 11th, when someone invaded the first lady’s profile and published insults, insults and pornographic content as if they were her own. On the morning of the 12th, the Federal Police (PF) opened an investigation to investigate the attack and the Public Prosecution Service, the body that legally represents the state, demanded that X preserve all digital elements of Janja’s account.
On the 13th, the PF executed search and seizure warrants at the home of a 17-year-old hacker, who admitted in a statement that he had acted alone, coincidentally found Janja’s personal information on the Internet and hacked it. the profile on the X of the first lady, email and LinkedIn accounts.
During the broadcast on the 19th of Conversa Com o Presidente, a program broadcast on social media in which Lula addresses current affairs in the government, Janja spoke for the first time about his intention to sue X for the delay in solving the problem . “It was so hard to get Twitter to block my account, it took an hour and a half,” he complained.
“I don’t even know where to file charges, if I should file charges in Brazil, if I should file charges in the United States, because I’m going to sue them one way or another,” he continued. “There are many public figures with hacked accounts, like the Prime Minister of Australia, so we need to hold these platforms accountable and regulate them somehow. The problem is not just in Brazil, it is global.”
Lula added that it is necessary to “regulate social networks,” but acknowledged that doing so without falling into censorship is a “challenge.” “We need to regulate seriously, the European Union is already doing that, but everyone has to be careful about this.”
For Janja, “it is not only necessary to talk about regulating the networks, but also to discuss monetization.” “Today, because they always benefit, it doesn’t matter whether people are good or bad [Musk] He became much more of a millionaire with that attack, that’s the point.”
Opposition deputies took advantage of the last sentence to mock Janja. Bolsonaro deputy Nikolas Ferreira, famous for speaking in plenary while wearing a wig to attack transsexuals, published a photo of a tent with the caption “and to think Musk lived here before the hacker.”
Mário Frias, Bolsonaro’s culture minister and former heartthrob of the youth soap Malhação, added that “Twitter represents only about 4% of his money.”
Rep. Rosangela Moro, wife of Sen. Sergio Moro, wrote that “Janja’s claim that Musk got rich at her expense is utter nonsense.” “Let’s get started? Stop defending hackers and oppose any bill that smacks of censorship.”
“Who would have thought that, right?” said lawmaker Carla Zambelli, who was under investigation for chasing a man with a gun on the streets of São Paulo. “It didn’t take long before Janja asked for social networks to be regularized. .”
Dating for a year and a half
The same Carla Zambelli had celebrated the takeover of the then Twitter, now X, by the South African in April 2022 in the following words: “long live Twitter, land of the free”, she published.
Jair Bolsonaro, then President of the Republic, shared a publication on Musk’s freedom of expression that same day. “I hope even my worst critics stay on Twitter because that’s what free speech is all about.”
And both Bolsonaro and Zambelli had a huge growth in new followers on the social network within 24 hours: 65 thousand and 23 thousand respectively, while the average was 4500 and 1600. According to technology expert Christopher Bouzy, interviewed by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo93% of new followers were generated in one day.
A month later, in May 2022, Fábio Faria, then Minister of Communications, would be Musk’s guide on a trip to the interior of São Paulo state. In the run-up to the elections, Musk embraced Bolsonaro, who awarded him a Medal of Honor, and was pampered by ministers, senators, deputies and anonymous Bolsonaro supporters.
At the time, former President Musk provided a Brazilian rocket launch base for his space company SpaceX and a surveillance program for the Amazon, but denied that the South African would have access to information. forest. “It is the beginning of a relationship that I am sure will soon end in marriage,” Bolsonaro said six months before last year’s elections.
After losing this vote against Lula, Bolsonaro supporters complained to the owner of Musk responded that he would “look into it.”
As a declared voter of Barack Obama, defender of ecological causes and supporter of the decriminalization of marijuana until the pandemic, Musk moved away from the progressive agenda and came closer to the right-wing agendas by criticizing the panic about the disease and the total freedom of freedom to defend. expressed on social media, to the satisfaction of Donald Trump and Bolsonaro.
However, Janja responded to that message from the owner of the platform’s Trending Topics, which should already have been a warning for the platform to know that something atypical was going on.”
“It is necessary to reiterate that all these questions are not just about me, but about all women who face misogynistic and criminal attacks on the platform every day and suffer the same neglect.”
Source: DN
