Bolsonaristas riot, Meta blocks ‘dangerous’ dead people, sedition laws silence Hong Kongers
It’s a new year and we come bearing gifts. Our new podcast series, Undercurrents: Tech, Tyrants and Us,” produced in partnership with Audible, offers eight compelling stories from around the world about people caught up in the intersections of tech, power, democracy and authoritarian rule. Enjoy.
In Brazil, Bolsonaro fanatics kicked off 2023 with a mass insurrection that evoked instant comparisons to the attack on the U.S. Capitol carried out by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021 — and at least one to the 2017 coup attempt in Venezuela. Plans for the insurrection were hashed out on Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and WhatsApp. Researchers at SumofUs, a corporate accountability group in the U.K., found that Meta was “routinely approving ads that are inciting violence, spreading disinformation and throwing doubt on the integrity of the upcoming elections.” Coda guest writer Fernanda Seavon has much more on the tech platform aspects of the insurrection in Brasília in an exclusive piece for us this week. And if you read Portuguese, I recommend coverage of the fallout by our partners at Agência Pública.
Last week, a Hong Kong man was convicted of sedition and sentenced to eight months behind bars over social media posts that called for Hong Kong’s independence and criticized local Covid-19 policies, which were notoriously strict until the end of last year. Another Hong Konger is awaiting trial over social media posts calling for independence. This is stunning when you think about the millions of Hong Kongers who took to the streets to call for the same just three years ago. Since the embattled city-state was brought under much closer control by mainland China in 2019, what was once a regular topic of conversation — and a rallying cry — is now considered a crime.
After two years at war, people in Ethiopia’s Tigray region know isolation well. But a late 2022 peace agreement between Tigrayan forces and the central government is bringing back connections between the region and the rest of Ethiopia and the world. Roads have opened up, air travel is resuming, and after two long years, the internet is finally back on.