The number of reports of explicit material depicting children and adolescents collected by online human rights NGO SaferNet have skyrocketed by 114% since influencer and comedian Felipe Bressanim Pereira, widely known as Felca, described how content creators make money by exploiting minors in sexualized settings.
In the video, which has garnered over 38 million views, Felca denounces the monetization of content in which children and adolescents are sexually exploited.
The number of reports was checked last Tuesday (12) on the NGO’s reporting platform, which has maintained its national channel for reporting crimes and human rights violations on the web for almost 20 years. From August 6, when the video was posted, to midnight on Tuesday, SaferNet received 1,651 single reports. In the same period last year, the hotline had received 770 complaints. The surge reached 114%.
Single complaints are those that SaferNet receives online anonymously, which are then submitted to federal prosecutors after filtering.
Driving force
In the opinion of SaferNet President Thiago Tavares, the growth in the number of reports of child sexual abuse images online in August is the result of Felca’s viral video.
“The issue of online child sexual abuse hasn’t generated such a debate in Brazilian society for years and the repercussion of the video has obviously encouraged people to report it,” he argued.
In his video, Felca pointed out two issues that SaferNet has been systematically denouncing since last year – the use of instant messaging app Telegram as a platform to distribute and sell videos of child abuse and exploitation, and the use of acronyms and emojis to refer to this type of content quietly, both when selling the images and to entice new victims.
One such acronym is CP (child porn), found in various group chats exchanging and selling child pornography and shown in the influencer’s viral video.
SaferNet does not recommend using the term child pornography as it downplays the seriousness of these crimes. The possession, recording, distribution, and sale of images of child sexual abuse and exploitation perpetuate the pain of more serious crimes – rape, abuse, and sexual exploitation of children and adolescents.
About SaferNet
SaferNet will be 20 years old this December. During its history, this Brazilian NGO has become a benchmark in the promotion of human rights on the Internet. The NGO maintains a countrywide reporting channel linked to the Federal Prosecution Service and a helpline for victims of violence and other online issues. SaferNet also promotes the safe use of the internet with educational projects.
