(Content warning: suicide)
(Note: the linked articles are in Brazilian Portuguese.)
Yesterday, Discord app sent me a notification, telling me that video streaming was blocked in my country. If you are not aware of the situation, basically an extremist group blackmailed and coaxed a minor to end her life during a livestream. This barbaric action and the subsequent lack of Discord staff to take sufficient action to prevent this from happening prompted the Brazilian government to taking this action.
Note that voice chats (without video), servers and direct messages work normally. The only limitation is the video broadcast feature.
Now, for the nitty-gritty: It's important to mention that this heinous crime did not start on Instagram, according to the experts on the matter. The broadcast started on Discord, and then they migrated to Meta's platform. This is at odds with the community's narrative that the criminals did not start their activity on the now blocked app.
Regardless of the situation, my current opinion on the matter is that no entertainment or work meetings should be more important than the death of a human being - a death that could be avoided if Discord took sufficient actions to combat extremist groups within it, and helped the investigators instead of admitting their "systemic failures" and then letting the tragedy unfold like it did.
If the investigators cannot proceed with their work, and the app's Trust and Safety staff does not collaborate, then the only remaining courses of action are fines and app bans. And the video ban was the chosen compromise.
Despite this action being taken haphazardly, I think that it makes sense. I use Discord as well, and this limitation is upsetting, but ultimately I understand this action. And while a lot of people believe that this is useless and the criminals will simply move to other apps and sites, they will now be forced to face a dilemma: either they hide in lesser apps, which reduces their reach; or use even more mainstream apps, which makes them more vulnerable to the law, both of which helps finding the perpetrators.
I also feel that blaming it all on the teenagers' parents for the outcome is also misguided. I know that parents need to educate their children and guarantee their safety, but If you are (or were) a teenager, you know that this is not completely feasible. The teenage years are exactly the time that the kids start becoming independent and yearning for acceptance within their peers, and considering that the most likely victims are also in a higher chance of being prejudiced even in their own families (such as being LGBTQIA+), this creates the perfect storm for the extremist groups to flourish.
As a common user, I don't know how difficult it is to deal with such severe problem, and this is definitely for the experts to solve. But all in all, I can't bring myself to be angry at the government's actions. Please understand that I will not be able to use the video feature on Discord until the situation improves.
This is the end of my opinion on the matter, and I needed to get it out of my system. Thanks for understanding.