The organization intends to receive complaints, investigate cases and take legal action against companies such as X, Meta — owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — and Google, with the aim of holding the platforms responsible for the damage caused to users.
“I think we have a very important mission to break the feeling of apathy, of impotence that people have in relation to big tech”, said Daniela da Silva in an interview with the Lusa agency.
The executive director of CTRL+Z added that “it is companies that have to be afraid of people, not people being afraid of companies”, defending greater public and legal pressure on the technology sector.
The organization’s name refers to the keyboard shortcut used to undo actions on the computer and, according to CTRL+Z’s official website, the initiative aims to “tackle the operating model” of large technology companies.
Among the projects launched is “Vaza Big Tech”, which allows employees of these companies to share information and complaints anonymously, and the “Digital Damage Archive”, aimed at gathering reports from users affected by digital platforms.
The organization works in partnership with law firms in Brazil to analyze complaints and evaluate possible legal actions with free legal support, using mechanisms provided for in Brazilian consumer protection legislation.
According to Daniela da Silva, users with suspended accounts, fake profiles, hacker invasions or harmful content not removed by the platforms will be able to turn to the organization in search of free guidance and legal support.
The former director of Public Policy at WhatsApp left Meta in January 2025, after about a year at the company, alleging disagreements with changes announced by Mark Zuckerberg in the company’s management.
The changes included, according to her, the end of fact-checking programs, greater circulation of political content and changes in the moderation of topics related to immigration and gender.
These actions by Meta, according to Daniela, made her realize that she would no longer be able to develop “rational public policy” and “dialogue-based” work that would make, in her view, “the platforms better”.
“I felt that it would be important for me to act in a different position, that if I wanted to see better digital platforms, I would have to do it outside of Meta, acting from the outside and not from the inside,” he stated.
Before Meta, Daniela worked for almost a decade at the Open Society Foundations, a global philanthropic organization.
According to her, after a period of “one year of gestation”, alongside friends and in dialogue with representatives of civil society who were already working to combat big tech, CTRL+Z was founded in April this year.
The executive director argued that civil society can act as a “brake” on the economic and political power of big tech, which she described as the most powerful companies in the history of contemporary capitalism.
Daniela da Silva also classified the rapprochement of digital platforms with authoritarian far-right movements as “technofascism” and warned of the role of technology in the dissemination of extremist speeches.
According to her, Brazil has become a relevant geopolitical hub in the international debate on digital governance and platform regulation, due to the country’s history in confronting large technology companies.
“These are the most powerful companies in the world, a level of concentration of capital never seen before in the history of capitalism, and we need there to be containment mechanisms for all this power”, he highlighted.
Daniela also stated that big techs created the illusion that they are inevitable and that their business model is the only sustainable one, but that, from the experience she has had within these companies, she knows that these are “decisions made by ordinary people”.
“The truth is, having worked on the inside, it became very clear to me that these decisions are made by ordinary people, often poorly informed about the countries where their companies operate,” he noted.
According to her, these decisions may be different, but “a lot of public pressure” is needed for this to happen — and it is precisely this pressure that motivates her.
Daniela da Silva, 40 years old, added that another motivation for creating the organization is linked to her nine-year-old daughter and her concern about digital education, screen time and the content consumed by children and teenagers.
“These technologies are ubiquitous, so they will enter the lives of our children and adolescents in some way, and we, as a society, need to make a pact to make them better”, he stated, saying he was optimistic.
Source: www.noticiasaominuto.com.br
