The suicide of a 13-year-old teenager after participating with other minors in a live session on Discord in which they induced her to self-harm has led a Brazilian government agency to order the American platform, very popular among kids worldwide, to suspend live broadcasts this Wednesday. After five minors and an adult were arrested for aggravated homicide following their participation with the victim in a virtual meeting, the wife of President Lula demanded, during an official event alongside him, the blocking of the platform. The 13-year-old girl took her own life on July 22 in Naviraí, Mato Grosso do Sul, a thousand kilometers from São Paulo, after a 45-minute session in which they also encouraged her to torture and kill a cat.
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The Brazilian Data Protection Agency has given the tech company three days to implement the suspension. The agency argues, according to the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, that Discord live streams have been repeatedly used to commit serious crimes that endanger the physical and mental integrity of minors under 18 years old.
The Federal Police last week arrested five teenagers aged between 13 and 17 and an 18-year-old adult linked to the live session in which the victim participated from her home. The six are being investigated for aggravated homicide and membership in a criminal organization. Investigators maintain that there was a second minor in the session, but she left. The group accused of instigating the violence even sent money to the victim so that, without her mother’s knowledge, she could buy the razor blades with which she injured herself.
Led by a 14-year-old boy arrested in Rio, the accused in the case of the 13-year-old teenager operated from locations thousands of kilometers apart, as indicated by their arrests in Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio, Minas Gerais, Ceará, and Pará. The agents seized their computers and cell phones, as well as bladed weapons and neo-Nazi paraphernalia.
Discord, which was born as a platform for video game players, has about 200 million monthly active users. It is the channel a Portuguese teenager used to incite Brazilian kids to carry out school massacres.
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Janja da Silva accompanied her husband, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, at the ceremony in which the president sanctioned a law that increases penalties for sexual offenders of minors when she proclaimed: “We need to block Discord at all costs. I cannot accept that a 13-year-old girl mutilates herself live on the Internet, on Discord, hangs herself, and dies. I cannot accept a country like this.”
Lula’s government has deployed all its administrative strength in this case, which highlights the serious threats posed by these increasingly popular practices among teenagers that occur in the solitude of their rooms, without their parents having any idea. The company states, according to Folha, that it does not tolerate groups or individuals who encourage violence, that it has teams dedicated to dismantling them, that it removes content that violates its rules, and that it cooperates with Brazilian authorities.
Brazil is a lucrative market for big tech companies because its more than 200 million inhabitants are among the highest Internet consumers in the world. The current government is engaged in an ambitious process of regulating platforms and social networks that has caused strong clashes both with companies and with the Donald Trump administration. Brazil blocked the X network for 40 days in 2024 by court order.
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