Foreign
In Brazil, Twitter Users Fear Effect of Musk’s Rule
Twitter has been in utter chaos since Elon Musk bought it late last month
Experts are concerned about the billionaire’s monetisation and moderation plans and a lack of social media regulation.
It was Easter, and Lola Aronovich, a Brazilian literature professor, was enjoying a break at a beach with no internet access, totally unaware of the defamation campaign being orchestrated against her on Twitter.
That day in April 2015, the son of Geraldo Alckmin, the former São Paulo governor and currently Brazil’s vice-president-elect, tragically died in a helicopter crash. Aronovich saw the events unfold on TV and headed home three days later – only to find thousands of vitriolic posts directed at her on Twitter for something she hadn’t done.
“A fake tweet was created where I was lamenting that Alckmin wasn’t in the crash. [The attackers] said I had deleted the tweet soon after posting it. The post went viral, and I got threatened by politicians, academics, and users with large follower bases,” Aronovich, who teaches at Federal University of Ceara, told Al Jazeera.
“I said I never wrote that. A far-right Twitter user noticed the image was false, but the damage was done. Some of the people [who reposted the fake tweet] deleted their posts, but no one ever apologised to me,” she said.
This was one of the many occasions where Aronovich, who uses Twitter to discuss feminism and human rights issues, has been bullied and abused on the social media platform.
“Someone harassed me incessantly for three years, and I get constantly attacked. I have blocked tens of thousands of users in the last decade,” said the professor, who has a base of just under 200,000 followers on Twitter.
Twitter Blue: ‘A license to attack’
Things do not bode well for activists like Aronovich with the changes to the platform under its new owner Elon Musk, namely paid verification product Twitter Blue.
“I am getting anonymous comments on my blog saying they cannot wait until [Twitter Blue] is available in Brazil. They are planning to create a verified profile in my name to defame me as they please,” Aronovich said.
The professor is concerned about Musk’s plans to enforce his vision as a “free speech absolutist”, while also generating profit.
“This is extremely dangerous, given that [Musk’s] supporters are usually those who harass others online with campaigns that may extrapolate into the real world,” Aronovich said. “[Twitter Blue] is effectively a license to attack.”
There are broader concerns over how the new management will affect the democratic debate on the platform. With 19 million users, Twitter is the ninth largest social network in Brazil, which pales in comparison with WhatsApp, the country’s most popular social app with 165 million users according to We Are Social and Hootsuite data.
Despite its relatively small user base, the microblogging site plays a vital role in shaping public opinion online, according to David Nemer, a professor at the University of Virginia and associate researcher at Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
“It is as if all Brazilians are on Twitter even though they are not, since prints of what is published there get widely shared on other social networks, like WhatsApp,” he said.
Disinformation on Twitter directed to Brazilian users has worsened significantly over recent years, Nemer said. He noted the platform was unprepared for its increase in relevance in the country, driven by the attention President Jair Bolsonaro has garnered on Twitter when he used the platform – and other social media – to reach out to voters in his election campaign in 2018, a first in the South American nation. That, in turn, prompted a rise in the adoption of the tool across the political spectrum.
With nearly 70,000 followers on Twitter, Nemer uses the platform as an activism tool and to advance his academic research, which focuses on the production and distribution of false information by far-right groups via messaging apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp.
Similarly to Aronovich, Nemer’s Twitter activity made him a target, with threats received frequently. He fears the recent decisions by Musk, such as ousting the department focused on making the platform’s algorithm fairer and more transparent, will have dire consequences.
“Absolutism in freedom of expression is a bad thing in Brazil as it directly hits the core of democracy while it discourages people from different social strata, race and sexual orientation to be part of the platform,” he noted.
More broadly, the academic believes Twitter will continue to play a crucial role in the new government led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was elected last month.
“The disinformation war will likely continue since it is about setting narratives and occupying spaces. Twitter is key in that sense, and I don’t see anyone [in the political scene] letting that go,” Nemer added.
Last week Musk said Twitter will limit the reach of negative or hateful content – something that had been in place prior to his purchase of the company – while also avoiding the deletion of such posts.
“[Musk] is trying to show progressive audiences that he is doing something to contain hate speech, given that these people have been leaving the platform in droves”, Nemer said.
However, such methods to curb the spread of hate content are somewhat inefficient, said Ale Santos, a Brazil-based Afrofuturism author and Twitter influencer.
“People who are dedicated to disseminating false and hurtful content online are constantly studying what the limits of the platform are and upgrading their way of spreading hate online,” Santos pointed out.
Paying for verification is a ‘luxury’
After Bolsonaro took office in 2019, Santos started using the platform more intensely to voice his political views.
“You couldn’t utter a word against the government and an army of [Bolsonaro] supporters would come crashing down like a tonne of bricks to offend, bully and criticise,” he said.
“They are not interested in the debate itself. Instead, they focus on creating controversy that will reverberate on the network”, said Santos, a fiction writer who has over 145,000 followers and got involved in a number of vicious debates with users, including the president’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, and other far-right influencers.
After realising that activity on Twitter was taking its toll on his mental health, Santos chose to take his activism to other platforms.
“I decided to do that through my podcast, and through my literary work. I left Twitter aside for those debates: I still say what I think there, but don’t get involved in individual clashes with people,” he noted.
Musk’s plans to monetise the platform while turning it into a “town square” where everyone can have a voice don’t make sense when situated in the Brazilian reality, said Santos.
“A town square would be great if everyone could be in it. As a white American male, Musk appears to be quite alienated about other cultures. In Brazil, where food insecurity has worsened, paying for verification on a social networking site is a luxury. It will amplify the social gap within the platform and make it a stage for extremists,” Santos said.
On Saturday Musk brought back Donald Trump, a day after he announced the platform was reinstating some banned Twitter users including author Jordan Peterson, comedian Kathy Griffin, and conservative parody outlet The Babylon Bee. Santos believes the latest decisions are a nod to far-right audiences.
“By doing that, [Musk] is implying that things will be easier for that group”, he said, adding this is also unlikely to please advertisers. “[Reinstating banned users] is another measure that can destabilise the platform.”
Al Jazeera did not receive a response to requests for comment sent to Twitter Brazil’s communications team or its country manager, Fiamma Zarife.
Insufficient attention to local contexts is a longstanding issue in social media sites like Twitter, said Bruna Martins dos Santos, a data protection and global internet governance consultant.
“The content policies of these platforms are orders from the United States to the rest of the world, created as a reflex of the Capitol invasion rather than political processes that happened elsewhere,” she said, referring to former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey acknowledging to the US Congress that the site had played a role in the Capitol riots.
Need for regulation
The US also needs clear rules around what platforms can or can’t do, according to Santos. Brazil has proposed a bill to regulate social media which is currently stuck in Congress.
“They [the US] also don’t have a data protection law, whereas Brazil has one,” she said.
At an event held by Brazilian business leaders’ group LIDE in New York on Monday, Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes stressed the role of legislators in tackling the spread of false information online in Brazil. The judge also reinforced his plans to bring regulation to social networks so that they are no longer “a no man’s land”.
Given that Twitter has become central to the public discourse globally, the lack of regulatory mechanisms that take account of its significance is “unfortunate”, said Bill Thompson, a UK-based internet pioneer, and commentator at Digital Planet, a BBC World Service technology programme.
“That is an indication that we haven’t thought properly about how important these platforms are,” he said.
As for how Musk might ensure that Twitter is a better place to foster the democratic debate, Thompson noted, “He could say, ‘Make this a public square we can be proud of, with the engineering, tools, and facilities to be a positive contribution to humanity, and do this as my legacy.’”
“No one should own a town square,” and that the platform could exist under a public trust, Thompson added.
“[Musk] is someone who has many other businesses, is a wealthy person, and doesn’t need [Twitter] to make a profit,” he said.”Twitter could be independent of him and, indeed, everything else.”
Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.
Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:
Latest updates and human impact
- Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
- Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
- This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
- Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
- The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
- The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.
Diplomacy
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
- The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
- Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
- Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.
West Bank raids and violence
- Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
- Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
- The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
- The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
- Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
- Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
- “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.
Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023
Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.
The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.
The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.
Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.
Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.
As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.
Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.
Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.
UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.
Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.
Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.
“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.
Abhorrent. This is a call to commit a war crime by @yoavgallant. The @IntlCrimCourt should take note.
Quote by @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/kKVo6YtpI1 pic.twitter.com/neHQMwnXVn
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.
“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.
Grotesque. These threatened acts would amount to flagrant war crimes by Hamas’ armed wing. The @IntlCrimCourt will be watching.
Quote from @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/FuNtvHe0YG pic.twitter.com/6cnHODLWyZ
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.
Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.
The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.
Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.
US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023
Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.
After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.
He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”
Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”
Accusations of Western ‘double standards’
Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.
Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.
https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.
https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”
The hypocrisy and double standards of western governments and media platforms dealing with situations in Ukraine-Russia and Palestine-Israel blow the mind. Absolute disgrace.
— Said Yacoubi (@AlyacoubiSaid) October 8, 2023
It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.
Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.
“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.
Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:
“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”
Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”
Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.
https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.
Just to clarify:
Palestine did not mount an attack on Israel. An Iranian proxy militia did. Palestinians are by and large huddled in their homes praying that an Israeli airstrike won't kill them or theirs. Hamas is the culprit here. This isn't a decentralized grassroots thing.
— Romeo Kokriatski (@VagrantJourno) October 9, 2023
Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.
Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.
After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.
Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.
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