[liberationtech] Brazilian Activists automatically being banned from Facebook

[Nadim Kobeissi]

Hello Andre,
For what it's worth, I tried sending this message on my Facebook (I am in Canada) and nothing happened. So the blocking, if factual, is probably limited to a certain number of accounts.

From personal experience, I don't recall hearing about this sort of thing happening in the past. Facebook Chat anti-abuse is usually triggered by URLs, not by regular messages, as far as I know.

NK

On 2013-06-22, at 4:54 PM, André Costa <andredmcosta at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello guys
> 
> I cannot say exactly what's going on in Brazil, but we have just revealed what seems to be the tip of a surveillance strategy related to the military. We have found that, when you send the message "Meu amigo general disse que a Força Nacional tá mega bem equipada, pra qualquer emergência."   on the chat, this content is automatically reported as abusive and the account is automatically suspended. 
> 
> For those who do not understand Portuguese, this sentence would translate as "My General-of-the-army friend said that the National Security Forces are very well equipped, for the case of any emergence". At least five friends needed to reconfirm their account, whereas I have not been able to come back.
> 
> I suspect that this system of aumotically banning probably works outside Brazil as well, so you may try it yourselves, but take care, because it may not let you get you accounts back. 
> 
> Could you try to put some light on this? Any idea of what it may be?
> 
> Thank you very much for any help
> Andre
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