proves explain: Elected with 1.49 million votes, Nikolas Ferreira is one of the main supporters and allies of the reelection candidate Jair Bolsonaro (PL). The politician declares himself a “Christian, conservative and defender of the family” and, in the final stretch of the elections, was forced by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to publish the right of reply of candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) after the dissemination of false information. about the PT.
On the day of the second round of the 2022 elections, a tweet that showed the profile of the elected deputy held on the platform went viral on the social network. In the caption, the person responsible for publishing the verified piece suggests censorship. The notice of retention of Nikolas’ profile on Twitter, however, was accompanied by the justification that the action took place on account of a legal demand. According to Twitter’s guidelines, the full retention of an account meets a valid legal requirement.
How do we check: We accessed the account of councilor and elected deputy Nikolas Ferreira on Twitter at 8:28 am on October 30th. At this time, the profile was already normalized. Subsequently, we contacted the Twitter press office to confirm if, in fact, the account had been withheld and, in case of a positive response, what would be the reasons for the decision.
In order to understand under what circumstances account retention is appropriate, we researched Twitter’s guidelines at Platform Help Center. In response, we obtained an article entirely dedicated to explaining the retention of certain content. According to Twitter, “holds are limited to the specific jurisdiction that issued the valid legal requirement or where the content violates local laws.” In contact with the councilor of the Minas Gerais parliamentarian, the retention of the account was confirmed, but without explanation of the reason.
From searches for the key terms “Nikolas Ferreira” and “suspended account”, we obtained news about the suspension of the councilor’s reserve account on Instagram and the suspension of the account on TikTok. Subsequently, we also searched for reports on the retraction of Nikolas Ferreira, after the TSE was subpoenaed due to the propagation of untrue content about former President Lula.
Account held and suspension history
On October 26, the elected deputy tweeted that his Instagram reserve account, with more than 2 million followers, had been suspended. On his official account, after violating the platform’s rules, the app had already banned Nikolas from performing lives. Upon appeal, the decisions were reversed. According to the newspaper The globethe Meta platform did not want to inform the reason for the block and the decision to be withdrawn.
On TikTok, Nikolas has also had his account suspended for a few minutes. The parliamentarian said, in a report published by the State of Mines, which “has happened several times, usually they report it en masse”. Nikolas explained that the account is offline, but, shortly after sending a resource through the application itself, the profile works again.
This Sunday, 30, tweets that showed the official account of the withheld councilor circulated on social networks. In the screenshot of Nikolas’ profile, it is possible to identify that the account was withheld due to a legal demand. A short time later, the politician’s Twitter was back to normal.
According to the Help Center of twitter, the message displayed on Nikolas’ profile occurs when the platform is required to withhold the entire specified account in response to a valid legal requirement, such as a court order. To Comprova, the parliamentary adviser confirmed that the account, in fact, was withheld, but that the reason is not known. After the normalization of the profile, Nikolas published “freedom sang”.
Comprova contacted the Twitter press office to find out the specific reason for retaining the profile, but did not receive a response until the end of the check.
Who is Nikolas Ferreira?
In 2020, Nikolas Ferreira obtained 29,388 votes and became, at age 24, the second most voted councilor in Belo Horizonte, by the Partido Renovador Trabalhista Brasileiro (PRTB). He was second only to what would be his biggest opponent in the city council of the capital of Minas Gerais, councilor Duda Salabert (PDT), the first trans woman elected in the city, with a historic record of 37,500 votes.
Conservative, he aimed to bar during his legislature “any and all progressive agenda”, an umbrella in which he includes topics such as abortion, “gender ideology” and what he already called “school indoctrination”.
An evangelical from Graça e Paz Community, Nikolas Ferreira said at the time that he had been active in the Direita Minas movement for 7 years. Graduated in Law from the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC-MG), he stated that, as a Christian, he “felt held back at the university”.
Today, at the age of 26, he arrives at the Federal Chamber for the Liberal Party (PL), the same as president and candidate for reelection Jair Bolsonaro, of whom he is a staunch supporter. In these elections, Nikolas set a record, being elected as the most voted federal deputy in the entire country, with almost 1.5 million votes. Until then, the leader of this ranking in Minas was Patrus Ananias, chosen by around 520 thousand voters in 2002, as UOL. In Brasília, Nikolas will meet again Duda Salabert, the first trans woman elected federal deputy for Minas.
Recently, the councilor and elected deputy was subpoenaed by the TSE to recant as a result of the dissemination of false allegations against former President Lula. THE note published on the parliamentary profile explained that the PT candidate will not persecute Christians or close churches. In the right of reply, granted by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, it was also denied that Lula is linked to organized crime and in favor of abortion and the legalization of drugs, among a series of other corrections.
The TSE also ordered Twitter to remove uninformative posts published by the parliamentarian, under penalty of a daily fine of BRL 100,000. After the retraction, Nikolas tweeted 100 reproductions of an old photo of the president of the Electoral Court, Alexandre de Moraes, with ears of the Disney character ‘Mickey’.
Recently, Comprova also investigated one of the viral contents published by the parliamentarian. In his social networks, Nikolas repeated allegations already denied in order to link former President Lula to drug trafficking and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
why do we explain: Comprova investigates suspicious content about the pandemic, presidential elections and public policies in the federal government that circulate on social media. The Comprova Explains section is used to disseminate information from contents that go viral and cause confusion, such as restrictions on social networks. Situations are used in a disinformative way to suggest censorship and also disrupt the electoral process. Publications of this type damage the democratic process and hinder the voter’s decision, which must be made based on true information.
Other checks on the topic: In previous checks involving parliamentarian Nikolas Ferreira in this year’s elections, Comprova has already shown that the elected deputy repeats on his social networks allegations that have already been denied to try to link Lula to drug trafficking and the FARC.
This weekend, the Comprova team joined 6 other fact-checking initiatives in Brazil to jointly verify election misinformation. The partnership brings together AFP, Aos Fatos, Boatos.org, Comprova, E-Farsas, Fato ou Fake and Lupa.
Investigated by: O Estado de S. Paulo and Estado de Minas. Verified by: Gaúcha ZH, Folha de S. Paulo, Metrópoles, Plural, O Dia, CNN Brasil, SBT, SBT News, Nexo and Grupo Sinos.
Source: CNN Brasil
