Influencers who promoted illegal betting platforms had their accounts taken down from Instagram this Wednesday (11) following a government request to Meta, owner of the social network.
On Monday (9), the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP) requested the removal of 348 profiles of digital influencers used to promote illegal betting platforms on social media.
According to the folder, the accounts, all on Instagram, have more than 150 million followers. Among the targets is a profile with 1.4 million followers. The request was forwarded to the platforms.
When entering one of the profiles, the message appears: "The content (Account) is not available. Due to a legal obligation related to fixed odds betting services in Brazil, we need to restrict access to its content."
Merianne Silva, owner of the profile @merianne___silva, used a secondary account to comment on the ban. "I just woke up and received news that is not 100% good. I just lost my account of 1.2 million (followers)," he said. "It is banned in Brazil." "If the government is taking it from everyone, that's great. If it's taking it from me and everyone else who continued to promote the platforms they couldn't disclose, I completely agree. If it's taken away, it's taken away."
On social media, internet users point out other influencers who also had their accounts banned. Among them, ex-BBB Paulo Augusto. In October, g1 identified at least 40 influencer profiles in Ceará who were still publishing betting and virtual casino links on Instagram. The three content creators heard in the article, Nayara Souza, Italo Wendel (known as Belo Belo) and Jéssica Santos (known as Jessica Macaxeira), had their accounts taken down. To g1, Jéssica stated that the account was taken down this Wednesday morning (11).
g1 asked Meta for a position on the overturned accounts, but did not receive a response until the last update of this report.
The government's request: The ministry stated that the measure is part of an offensive to prevent clandestine platforms from using influencers and social networks to reach new bettors. The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) published, on September 25, the MP that banned the exploration, offering, intermediation and advertising of fixed-odds betting in the country, in addition to online games and virtual casinos.
According to the ministry, only this Monday were also identified: 2,207 pages on Facebook, with a total audience of 7.5 million; 18 groups on Telegram, with approximately 182 thousand participants; 998 websites related to irregular betting. "It is not enough to take illegal betting sites offline if these platforms continue to reach the population through influencers and social networks. We are acting on this entire chain of disclosure to prevent clandestine activities from continuing to exploit citizens and compromising families' income", stated the Minister of Justice, Wellington César Lima e Silva, according to a statement from the ministry.
Monitoring is carried out by the National Secretariat for Digital Rights (Sedigi) and the National Secretariat of Public Security (Senasp), through the Cyber Operations Laboratory (Ciberlab). The work involves websites, social networks and messaging applications.
More than 60 thousand pages monitored: According to the Ministry of Justice, the monitoring started on September 25 has already counted more than 60 thousand websites, pages, profiles, groups and servers related to the dissemination of irregular bets. Of this total, 51,611 are websites. The ministry also claims to have identified 6,596 pages on Facebook, which have an audience of 34 million members and followers, in addition to more than 900 profiles on Instagram. On Telegram, 1,442 groups were identified, bringing together 25.6 million participants. The survey also found 127 profiles on TikTok, with 469 thousand followers. According to the ministry, on October 9 the survey counted 20,318 websites, pages, profiles, groups and servers. A month later, the number exceeded 60 thousand.
Ban on betting: The offensive comes after the federal government banned fixed-odd betting in the country, known as bets. The ban was established by Provisional Measure No. 1,394, published on September 25th. The provisional measure prohibited the exploration, offering, intermediation and advertising of fixed odds bets in Brazil. The measure also reached online games and virtual casinos, such as the so-called “Jogo do Tigrinho”. The removal of content related to betting on social media was already among the government's areas of action. On September 29, the Ministry of Justice reported that it had requested the blocking of 5,209 websites and the removal of 186 applications from the Apple and Google stores. At the time, the removal of 300 Facebook pages and 90 Instagram profiles had also been requested. The government also notified Google, Meta, YouTube, X, Telegram, TikTok, Kwai and Discord to remove irregular advertisements.
