Social networks and amplification

Catraca Livre is a popular Brazilian website created by journalist Gilberto Dimenstein that claims to use the internet for citizen empowerment. In Portuguese, Catraca is a turnstile, the idea presumably being that everybody is welcome to the site. On the morning of November 30, in the wake of the plane crash in Colombia in which 71 people died, including most of Brazilian soccer side Chapecoense AC, its Facebook page had garnered more than 8.3 million Likes. About 12 hours later, that number had dropped below 7.8 million.

So why would a page lose so many readers in such a short time? The site had republished several stories such as tips for people afraid of flying, along with another about the myths of air travel, mentioning the tragedy directly and used the hashtag #acidentenaColombia. This questionable decision prompted many complaints, which the site responded to by saying that it was only publishing material relevant to the tragedy.

In turn, some readers started a campaign to unsubscribe from the site, which is what led to the steep falloff in readers and that could be followed on Facebook Live. By 2 pm, the site, clearly worried, published a couple of apology notes that failed to convince readers or halt the descent. By 4.30 pm, the site’s founder posted a personal apology on called “Meu erro” (my mistake), accepting full responsibility, but that did nothing to stop the fall-off in readers.

Meanwhile, on its site, sporting goods site Netshoes raised the price of Chapecoense’s official shirt by two thirds, angering many people. It attempted to explain, and its founder even posted a video saying that the price increase had been carried out automatically after stock set aside for Black Friday had been sold. Returning the shirts to their discounted price did little to appease the ire of many users.

When emotions are unleashed in the aftermath of a tragedy such as happened earlier this week, the social networks can magnify a collective feeling, often with unpredictable results. In this case, it was sufficient for a group of people to express their anger at a given target, which suddenly found itself the focus of a collective rage.

Did Catraca Livre or Netshoes do anything so egregious as to deserve such a backlash? Depending on how you see things, Catraca was guilty simply trying to meet its readers’ demand for news items related to the accident. The problem is that at such a moment, when people’s feelings are running high, it is easy to find oneself on the end of a digital lynch rope. Were the explanations offered by the two sites credible? It matters little once the story has settled in the collective imagination and is reduced to an accusation of trying to generate more traffic or to bump up the price of soccer shirts.

Decisions were taken at lightening speed after which there was no going back: a lesson, were it needed, that the internet can be a very harsh and unforgiving environment.

My thanks to Brazilian journalist Sabrina Passos, student of the Master in Visual and Digital Media at the IE School of Human Sciences and Technology. A native of the state of Santa Catarina, home to Chapecoense, she lost friends and acquaintances in the tragedy, and she was the one calling my attention to this.

(En español, aquí)