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A viral YouTube video with over 32 million views sparks urgent debate in Brazil’s Congress on monetization and children’s rights on social media
Photo by: Youtube
Hi everyone! Wishing you a great week and another meaningful journey ahead.
By José Brito, journalist and founder of Pupa Educação Digital
“I kept liking the posts I found more suggestive, okay? And now… you’ll see what starts happening in my algorithm. I’m no longer searching for anything—just scrolling through Reels—and look what it’s showing me. Honestly? This is exactly how a pedophile would train Instagram to show this kind of content.”
Felipe Bressanim Ferreira, aka Felca, youtuber.
If you’re like me—a kid who grew up amid the (barely) questioned culture of the 1980s, when sexist, racist, and homophobic jokes were playground staples, and suggestive dances like “Boquinha da Garrafa” set the tone for school parties—you’ll probably understand why the viral video by Brazilian YouTuber Felca, raising awareness about “Adultização” (Adultization), hit such a nerve this week.
Now, if you were born post-2000, you likely grew up already fluent in terms like shippar, scrollar, cringe, stalkear, flopar, or FOMO. So this newsletter’s topic—monetization, exploitation, sexualization, and algorithmic engagement—will be very familiar territory.
(Spoiler: scroll to the end if you want a glossary of those words, but don’t forget to come back!)
According to Fundação Abrinq, Adultization refers to the premature exposure of children to behaviors, responsibilities, and expectations that should be reserved for adults. Straightforward, right? If only the world was a place of universal education, high-level debate, and firm commitments to human rights—especially when it comes to vulnerable populations like children and teenagers in digital spaces.
That’s the heart of the matter. I spent 50 minutes watching the entire video—attentively. I took a deep breath. I considered skipping some scenes, especially those with trigger warnings, but I kept going. The way the issue is approached by Felipe Bressanim sheds light on just how easily digital platforms deliver harmful—even criminal—content to freshly created user accounts, which are then pushed into disturbing echo chambers and forums frequented by predators and abusive families.
Felca conducts a powerful experiment. Through it, we’re invited to better understand the impact of what marketers call the “sales funnel”—the journey a user takes from first exposure to conversion, or in this case, algorithmic addiction. He presents several real-world cases currently under investigation by Brazil’s Public Prosecutor’s Office, such as a YouTuber who runs a reality-show-style channel featuring underage teens in sexually suggestive and exploitative scenarios. Others involve families who monetize their children’s presence online—chasing the dream of viral fame.
For anyone looking to dive deeper into digital culture and track how these conversations unfold across platforms, I recommend following Luis Fakhouri and Felipe Bailez from Palver, a brilliant Brazilian social listening and data intelligence platform. They appeared recently on Café da Manhã, a podcast from Folha de São Paulo in partnership with Spotify. That podcast, by the way, was my first entry point to the topic—huge thanks to Magê Flores, Gabriela Mayer, and Gustavo Simon.
Regardless of the intent behind Felca’s video, it opens essential conversations. I write this not just as a journalist and digital culture researcher, but as a father and educator deeply involved in Brazil’s national efforts around media literacy and safe technology practices.
It’s about how we build digital policies. How schools teach tech through their curricula. How families address online safety. It’s about care, autonomy, privacy, rights, and responsibilities—and how to keep these conversations going without ideological polarization. Most importantly, it’s about algorithmic literacy. That’s what the video ultimately challenges us to explore: What can we do to improve digital experiences without losing sight of the business logic behind it all?
Because yes—this is a business. There’s money moving behind every click. So we must ask ourselves: How far are we willing to go to make the internet safer through education—digital, media, and algorithmic?
Enjoy the read.
📚 Glossary — AI-Enhanced Definitions 😉
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SHIPAR | From ship (short for relationship): To root for a couple, real or fictional.
“Eu shippo muito eles dois!” → ‘I totally ship those two!’ -
SCROLLAR | From scroll: To endlessly browse a social media feed.
“Passei horas scrollando o TikTok.” → ‘I spent hours scrolling TikTok.’ -
CRINGE | Awkward, outdated, or embarrassing.
“Usar calça skinny é muito cringe.” → ‘Wearing skinny jeans is so cringe.’ -
STALKEAR | From stalk: To obsessively browse someone’s online life.
“Passei a noite stalkeando meu ex.” → ‘I spent the night stalking my ex.’ -
CANCELAR | From cancel culture: Publicly boycotting someone over offensive behavior.
“A influencer foi cancelada.” → ‘The influencer got canceled.’ -
FLOPAR | From flop: To fail at achieving popularity.
“O vídeo flopou, só teve 100 views.” → ‘The video flopped—only 100 views.’ -
FOMO | Fear of Missing Out: Anxiety from being left out of something.
“Tive fomo do evento.” → ‘I had FOMO about the event.’
#01 “Adultization” and the Question of What Kind of Society We Want for the Digital Generation
Link: [Gov.br]
“During my early years, I was puzzled by the purpose of underwear. Then it dawned on me: they were made to protect us from clothing tags! If not for that, why even wear them?”
There’s no better way to reflect on childhood innocence than quoting Brazilian columnist Antonio Prata. Childhood—the phase of wonder, magic, and make-believe—can feel like a protective bubble, but reality hits fast. And sometimes hard.
When I stumbled upon Prata’s book Nu, de Botas (Naked, in Boots) during a trip to Livraria da Travessa with my family, it reminded me how humor and poetic logic can help us question even the most mundane aspects of life. In times like these, where kids face algorithmic threats and identity is shaped online, Prata’s reflections ground us in what it means to be human—and still learning.
» Naked, in Boots
Author: Antonio Prata
Publisher: Companhia das Letras
2013
