Death threats, vitriol for Brazil students targeting online misinformation

Leal, right, and Stelle, who administer the Twitter account Sleeping Giants Brazil, use their computers in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Sleeping Giants is a platform for activism whose stated mission is to attack the financing of hate speech and dissemination of fake news. — AP

RIO DE JANEIRO: Before dawn on Dec 1, Leonardo de Carvalho Leal prepared to leave his family behind in the Brazilian city of Ponta Grossa, in Parana state. His mother overwhelmed him with goodbyes and gifted him a bracelet she said had brought her luck. He fiddled with it on his wrist the entire ride to the airport, unsure when he might see her again.

“Maybe I was blaming myself a bit, for leaving so many people vulnerable,” he said in a video interview with The Associated Press, with tears welling as he recalled his departure. “But what I did was right.”