If you only have a few seconds, read these lines:

• The niece of senator of Tucamán for the FPV reported him to the Court for harassment and published an open letter with the hashtag “#NoNosCallamosMás” (“We won’t be quiet anymore”).
• A tweet by Alperovich was the most commented, with users calling him a “rapist” and demanding his resignation.
• In the 24 hours following the publication of the letter, 62 thousand messages were shared on Twitter.

On last Friday at midday, a report became known against the current Senator for the Frente pela Vitória (FPV) in Tucumán, José Alperovich. The former governor’s niece published an open latter in the newspaper La Gaceta de Tucumán stating that her uncle had violated her “physical, psychological and sexual integrity” for one year and a half.

The letter was promoted with the hashtag “#NoNosCallamosMás” (“We won’t be quiet anymore”), which became one of the trending topics on that day and prompted the conversation on the social networks. The internet spread the news, and on Wikipedia, for instance, the term “rapist” was quickly added to the senator’s description, although it was soon removed (see here).

Chequeado analyzed the conversation on the social networks via Trendsmap. From Friday, November 22 at midday (when the letter was published) to 24 hours later, 62 thousand messages were shared on Twitter. In the first three hours (between midday and 3 p.m. on Friday), 13,000 messages were shared about this topic. Regarding the interactions in each province, Tucuman stood out and the conversations related to Alperovich dominated the network.

The hashtag with which the senator’s niece promoted the letter was the most used in the tweets about the topic (16.2%). It was followed by: “#alperovich” (6.7%), “#tocaunetocantodes” (“You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us”, with 1.9%) and “#justicia” (“justice”, with 1.9%). The words most often included on tweets were: “Alperovich” (83%), “niece” (35%), “José” (26%), “rape” (22%) and “report” (14%). It is important to note that the messages also used words that gave rise to the aggressions, such as “rapists”, “rape”, “monster” (the way the niece referred to Alperovich in her letter), “abuse” and “raped”.

The most shared tweets came from accounts related to officialism. The top tweet was made by journalist and writer @nachomdeo (Nacho Montes de Oca), who mentioned the senator’s parliamentary privileges regarding the report and wonder which stance the “K feminism” would take. The tweet had more than 2 thousand shares.

Tweet: With a rape report against him, the Senate has to decide whether to defend Joseph Alperovich’s immunity. And the K feminism has to decide to take an uncomfortable stance for their usual blindness.
The ranking continued with a message by Diego Álzaga Unzué (@atlanticsurff), an account was been proven by Reverso to have spread false information in other occasions. The user shared a message criticizing characters related to the Kirchnerism. He said: “When will the Kirchnerismo, Nancy Dupláa, Verónica Llinás, Rita Cortese, Dolores Fonzi, Ofelia Férnandez and other ‘paladins’ of justice demand Alperovich’s resignation due to the report given by is niece? Oh, this rape is good? My bad”.

The third most shared message was published by the user Beto Hanalfa (@hanalfabeto), who has 104 thousand followers and has ben active since 2010. He also referred to how the political forces around the accused senator would deal with the report. The tweet indicated contradictions and said: “-They said Darthés is a rapist / -Let him rot in jail!/ -Alperovich too/ -Ermmm… A bit more complex”.

On the other hand, the senator’s official account (@JAlperovichOk) published the message which obtained the most replies. The tweet was strongly criticized for including the name of the victim, which had been avoided in order to protect her integrity. The message had 2 thousand replies. It is also important to note that in the first three hours of the analysis, since the senator had not yet made a publication about the topic, users commented in his last publication, although it was about another topic. Many replies demanded his resignation or called him a “rapist”.

Another one of the most replies tweets was made by Victoria Donda, national deputy elected by the Frente de Todos, in which she said the senator should “take his leave until the law determines his responsibility”. The deputy was criticized for not demanding the removal of his privileges (for example, see here) or his resignation, since he belongs to the same political space as her. Yesterday in the afternoon, Alperovich requested a leave in the Senate of the Nation.

In addition to the senator’s account, Coletivo de Atrizes (@actrices_arg) was one of the most active users regarding this topic. The account shared the news using the hashtag “#NoNosCallamosMas”.

Chequeado also analyzed the repercussion of this topic on Facebook, although limited to data only from public and official accounts (fan pages). 102 publications were shared in 6 hours (11 a.m. to 5 p.m.), generating 37.355 interactions.

The publication with the most interactions was made by the fan page of the TN channel, commenting on the report and redirecting to a note in their portal. The publication contained a photo of the senator and part of the letter his niece published with explicit details of the abuses reported. The most frequent reaction to this publication was “Grr” (3.9 thousand).

Alperovich had been previously involved in conducts that were criticized by the feminist collective, such as the sexist comments he made to journalist Carolina Servetto in an interview. In this case, however, it is a formal report, and because the abuses supposedly happened in Tucumán and Buenos Aires, it was presented to the local courts and also in the Specialized Fiscal Unit on Violence against Women (UFEM) in Buenos Aires, respectively. Yesterday, Alperovich’s niece ratified the report and broadened her testimony to the Judiciary Branch.

* The Digital Democracy Room is a project of FGV DAPP in Brazil in partnership with Chequeado, Linterna Verde and Ojo Público. It’s goal is to monitor and analyze the digital conversations regarding the electoral context.

The analysis is available the website of Chequeado here.