RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Allies of the Brazilian president, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, complained on Monday about the sudden loss of thousands of his followers on Twitter, which reported that it conducted a routine procedure against suspicious accounts.
Federal Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, one of the president’s sons, posted on his profile that he lost “about 15,000 followers on Twitter suddenly” and asked the government to draw up a decree to “end” what he called “abuses.”
“Without any explanation to their customers, Big Tech do what they want and the fear is that in 2022 (presidential election year in Brazil) this will get worse,” he claimed.
Eduardo Bolsonaro shared the criticism of the advisor of International Affairs of the Presidency of Brazil, Filipe Martins, who also claimed that he “lost 15,000” followers “in a few minutes”.
“Once again conservatives losing thousands of followers on Twitter without any plausible explanation,” criticized Martins.
Former Education Minister Abraham Weintraub and his brother, former presidential advisor Arthur Weintraub, two faithful squires of Bolsonaro, also claimed a loss of followers, despite no longer being inside the government.
“I had almost 622,000 followers. Now 609,000. This is the second time that Twitter provides this kind of demonstration of plurality. It is a Bolivarian platform,” said the latter in his profile.
The same thing allegedly happened to other federal and regional politicians sympathetic to Bolsonaro’s government, as well as to digital influencers sympathetic to the ruler, as they themselves denounced.
Twitter reported in a note sent to local media that it only carried out a routine procedure against accounts with “suspicious behavior”, in order to prevent the proliferation of bots on the social network.
“In order to protect the integrity and legitimacy of conversations on its service, Twitter regularly requests that accounts with suspicious behavior around the world confirm details such as password or cell phone number, verifying that there is a person behind them,” it said.
“Until this confirmation stage is completed, the accounts are temporarily disabled, with limited functions, and are no longer counted as followers,” added Twitter in the note reported by the newspaper ‘Folha de Sao Paulo’.
The social network stressed that this type of control is carried out regularly and “globally”.
Other social networks such as Facebook and Instagram have likewise deactivated accounts in recent months that impersonated media outlets, created fictitious personas, and promoted “hate speech”.
The matter is under investigation by Brazilian authorities.
In fact, the Brazilian Supreme Court is overseeing an ongoing case against the dissemination of “fake news” and threats towards members of the Legislative and Judicial Branches, based on the suspicion that behind these attacks there are far-right movements and even politicians and businessmen sympathetic to Bolsonaro.