An advertising campaign in Brazil is taking screenshots of Facebook and Twitter users' racist comments and turning them into billboards, using the social networks' geolocation tools to erect the billboards near the users' homes.
The campaign, called "Virtual racism, real consequences", is backed by Criola - an organisation defending the rights of black women in Brazil - in partnership with a number of billboard media companies.
The aim of the campaign is not to expose individual commenters - the billboards pixelate the names and profile pictures of the Facebook users, so as to conceal their identities - but to put forward the idea that racist comments posted in virtual interactions can have serious real-world effects.
"We wanted to raise awareness and start a discussion, in order to make people think about the consequences before posting these kinds of comments on the Internet. Because, after all, the worst enemy of racism is silence," the campaign says on its Web site.
The campaign originated around an incident in which a storm of racist comments was hurled at Afro-Brazilian weather reporter Maria Julia Coutinho when her photo was posted on the Facebook page of prime-time Brazilian news programme Jornal Nacional.
Many of the campaign's screenshots were taken from this thread, which has racked up nearly 20 000 comments since the photo was posted in July.
The campaign has erected billboards in several Brazilian cities, including Porto Alegre, Americana, Feira de Santana, and Vila Velha.
It has also compiled a video of reactions to the campaign, many of which are positive, lauding it for drawing attention to racism in Brazil.
Share