Such takedowns have become par for the course for Brazilian Indigenous content creators like Kalapalo who have taken to social media in recent years to increase awareness about their cultures and gain a kind of financial independence. Censorship from social media platforms has forced them to sanitize their content, eliciting concern among academics who believe that doing so erodes their archival records.

The internet is important to Indigenous communities “because [theirs] is a culture of orality, of images,” Maria Perpétua Domingues, a history researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, told Rest of World.

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Both Kalapalo sisters have had videos taken down from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Kwai for violating rules related to copyright laws and age-restricted content.

The sisters now ensure that anyone shown in their films is clothed. They also limit some of their content to short Q&A vlogs, which show little other than their faces. While this usually avoids pushback from platforms, it also hinders their effort to preserve their culture, with traditional dances and rites left out to avoid further takedowns.

“People ask me, ‘Ysani, make videos on the rituals or the dances,’ and I can’t,” said Ysani, who believes her YouTube channel is one flagged video away from being banned.

Read more:

Daros, G. (2024, August 21). Indigenous creators are clashing with YouTube’s and Instagram’s sensitive content bans. Rest of World. https://restofworld.org/2024/youtube-instagram-sensitive-content-ban-indigenous-creators/