Brazilian misogynistic YouTube channels feature over 130,000 videos
At least 123 Brazilian channels that disseminate content against women are active on YouTube, a survey by the Internet and Social Network Studies Laboratory (NetLab) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) shows. Together, they have over 23 million subscribers and some 130 thousand published videos.
The data released on Monday (Mar. 9), shortly after International Women’s Day, updates the survey conducted in 2024, when 137 channels were mapped. Since then, only 14 channels have been removed, either by the owners or by the platform. In addition, 20 channels have changed their names, but some of them continue to produce misogynistic content even under their new monikers.
NetLab also points out that, in addition to remaining active, these channels have gained new subscribers. The number of people subscribed to the 123 remaining channels has surged by 18.5 percent since April 2024, with more than 3.6 million new sign-ups.
The videos also generate income for the creators. Considering the first sample from 2024, about 80 percent had some monetization strategy, whether through the platform’s offerings – such as ads and membership programs – or alternatives – such as e-book sales or instant money transfers.
In the view of NetLab researcher Luciane Belín, this shows how misogyny has become a niche business.
“It’s not just their opinion, but also an opportunity to make money based on the humiliation, belittlement, and subjugation of women,” she stated.
Concept
Belín said that NetLab created a protocol to identify different types of misogynistic discourse.
“We work with a concept of misogyny that is not only focused on hatred and the promotion of direct violence, but also on feelings of contempt and aversion, and on the assumption that women need to be subjugated and belittled,” she added.
The report shows that the popularization of these videos is a recent phenomenon. Even though the oldest video was posted in 2018, 88 percent of them were published starting in 2021, and just over half (52%) were added to the platform sometime from January 2023 to April 2024. Since April, around 25 thousand new videos have been posted.
To define which channels disseminate misogynistic content, the study considered only those that contained at least three videos with at least one expression of hatred towards women. The most recurring theme, in which 42 percent of the videos were classified, was “contempt for women and encouragement of male insurgency.”
This category includes videos “that urge men not to let themselves be dominated by women,” while encouraging them to treat women with contempt. The content also spreads the idea that gender equality initiatives are strategies of social domination against men.
“We found some very explicit content. When we look at the words used to describe women, for example, we identify terms such as ‘stupid’ and ‘slut’ that are used a lot. This was somewhat surprising, because we thought the platform would take down this type of content,” he noted.
But the researcher explains that some influencers also use strategies to disguise their content, such as the use of abbreviations and nicknames. The word “mulher” (Portuguese for “woman”), for example, is replaced by “colher” (which means “spoon” but sounds close to the word for woman) and single mothers, one of the most attacked groups, are called “msol.”
“Sometimes the opinion is not expressed verbally, but when you look at the images that illustrate the videos, they show women kneeling at men’s feet or hypersexualized with huge necklines, etc.,” she added.
She demands more accountability from platforms. “Criminalizing misogyny would be one way to help minimize this discourse, but even aside from criminalization, we need to continue discussing the role of platforms in relation to the country’s sovereignty. If it’s a crime outside the internet, it needs to be a crime inside the internet.”
Google, the company responsible for the YouTube platform, was contacted but has not yet responded to the report.
