Brasília (AFP) – Popular messaging platform Discord said Monday that it had complied with a Brazilian government order to suspend livestreaming and video calls in the country after a teen girl was allegedly goaded into taking her own life during one such broadcast. Brazil’s National Data Protection Agency (ANPD) had ordered the US-based tech company to suspend livestreams on August 12, saying it had failed to put safeguards in place to protect children.
“We’re complying with the order and working with the ANPD in good faith, which means that screen sharing and video calls will be unavailable for Brazilian users starting now,” Stanislav Vishnevskiy, the company’s co-founder, said in a blog post. Five teenagers have been arrested in connection with the death of the 13-year-old girl, which one police officer described as a “real-life horror show.” Over 45 minutes, the teens allegedly encouraged the girl to kill an animal and when she failed to do so, they encouraged her to kill herself, according to an official with the Justice Ministry’s Ciberlab intelligence unit.
In his post, Vishnevskiy claimed that Discord was not the only platform involved, saying that the “coordinated sadistic harm campaign…was carried out across multiple platforms.” “We are working hard to restore access to these important features as quickly as possible,” he wrote. When it ordered the suspension, the ANPD said that “livestreams have been repeatedly used to facilitate violence, harassment, and the incitement of self-harm and suicide,” and it cited “robust evidence that the company failed to adopt reasonable measures.”
Discord, at the time, said it was “disappointed” by the directive and that it rejected the agency’s “characterization” of the platform. Rosangela da Silva, wife of left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, called for Discord to be shut down and urged “the judiciary to remove this horrible network from the Internet.” Discord claims more than 90 million active daily users worldwide. Brazilian authorities blocked access to X for 40 days in 2024 over disinformation concerns.
© 2024 AFP
