# Digital vultures violate society with amoral clicks. Pure dehumanization

The episode involving Fernando Henrique Cardoso exposes an industry that turns human vulnerability into spectacle. Dignity is a constitutional guarantee, not a concession granted by algorithms.

- Columnist: [Marcello D'Angelo](https://ceoone.com.br/en/columnist/marcello-dangelo)
- Published: November 12, 2026
- Address: https://ceoone.com.br/en/article/digital-vultures-violate-society-with-amoral-clicks-pure-dehumanization
- Em português: https://ceoone.com.br/artigo/abutres-digitais-violentam-a-sociedade-com-cliques-amorais-pura-desumani.md

![A mobile phone on a small tripod, recording, pointed at an empty armchair in an elegant living room with books, reading glasses and paintings on the wall](https://pub-b80e49b2737940b3ab5d3f20d0578192.r2.dev/artigos/abutres-digitais-violentam-a-sociedade-com-cliques-amorais-pura-desumani.webp)

Produced by AI

## Key points

- Marcello D'Angelo calls it moral violence that influencer Wesley Oliveira published images of the private life of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, aged 95, filmed inside the former president's apartment.
- The columnist notes that the Constitution and the Statute of the Elderly protect older people's image and privacy, and that the Civil Police have already indicted the influencer and his husband.
- He argues that platforms should also be held liable when they prolong unlawful circulation, as the Supreme Court's reading of the Marco Civil da Internet allows, and says this is not censorship.

Some behaviors need no lengthy discussion to reveal their utter lack of decency. The exposure of the private life of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, aged 95, by a digital influencer is one of them. This is not an indiscretion, a tasteless joke or yet another passing social media controversy. It is an intolerable act of moral violence, committed against someone in a vulnerable condition and turned into a spectacle for public consumption.

It is dehumanization converted into clicks.

Wesley Oliveira, who published the images, walked through the former president's apartment, showed his personal belongings, works of art and private rooms and, finally, showed FHC himself, in circumstances in which his privacy should have been especially protected.

All of it turned into content to win attention, views and engagement.

There is something deeply perverse in this logic. The home of a 95-year-old man is not a set available to digital curiosity. His private life does not belong to anyone's followers. His state of health does not give third parties the right to turn him into an attraction. And his personal history does not authorize strangers to behave as if they owned his image.

These are the digital vultures. Characters in a culture in which notoriety seems to dispense with any commitment to ethics, empathy or the most basic limits of social coexistence. For them, anything can become content. Pain, old age, illness, frailty and even the private life of those who are no longer able to protect themselves from exposure.

The episode is particularly painful because of the contrast between the brutality of this conduct and the public career of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. One of the great leaders in Brazilian history, he made intelligence, elegance, kindness and respect for dialogue the hallmarks of his presence in national life. A man who faced opponents without needing to turn them into enemies and who understood that authority is not the same as aggressiveness.

FHC took part in decisive moments of Brazilian history. He served as President of the Republic for eight years, played a central role in stabilizing the economy and helped consolidate democratic institutions. He was a leading figure in national and international debates, always associated with the use of words, reflection and the clash of ideas.

But none of this is needed to justify our outrage.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso deserves respect not because he was president, an intellectual or an important figure in Brazilian history. He deserves respect because he is a human being. Because aging, illness and vulnerability do not strip anyone of the right to privacy, protection and dignity.

And these rights do not depend on the goodwill of whoever is holding a phone.

The Brazilian Constitution establishes human dignity as one of the foundations of the Republic. Its Article 5 declares the privacy, private life, honor and image of individuals inviolable. Article 230 assigns to the family, society and the State the duty to protect the dignity and well-being of older people.

The Statute of the Elderly (Estatuto da Pessoa Idosa) is even more specific. It expressly protects physical, psychological and moral integrity, including image, identity, autonomy, personal spaces and personal belongings. It even provides for criminal penalties for disseminating degrading or offensive images of older people, when the conditions set out in the law are met.

We are therefore not dealing with a matter of etiquette, good manners or sensitivity. We are dealing with fundamental rights that the Brazilian legal system recognizes and protects.

The influencer claims he was given permission to film, a claim the family disputes. The dispute will have to be clarified by the authorities. But one thing must be made clear: having access to someone's home does not mean having unrestricted permission to record, publish and exploit their private life.

The Civil Police have already indicted Wesley Oliveira and his husband, Lessandro Gonçalves, for crimes related to the episode. The courts have ordered measures to prevent further exposure. Criminal liability will depend on due process of law. Moral judgment of the behavior on display, however, need not wait for a verdict.

And responsibility for this violence does not necessarily end with whoever pressed the button to publish.

Digital platforms need to join this discussion. Not merely as environments in which the images circulated, but as companies that build systems capable of distributing, recommending, amplifying and monetizing content on an industrial scale.

It is not reasonable for an industry built on the economic exploitation of human attention to expect to remain indifferent to the consequences of the very way it operates.

Violence against a person's dignity does not necessarily end at the moment of the original post. Every unlawful reproduction, every share that widens the improper exposure and every unjustified day the images remain online can prolong the harm. What began as an invasion of privacy can take on incomparably larger dimensions through the distribution power of the platforms.

The Federal Supreme Court, in revisiting its interpretation of the Marco Civil da Internet (Brazil's Internet Civil Rights Framework), broadened the circumstances in which companies can be held civilly liable for unlawful content posted by third parties, subject to the specific conditions laid down in the ruling. Liability is not automatic, but the platforms' freedom to operate does not mean immunity when fundamental rights are violated.

In FHC's case, the courts have already ordered the removal of the images and the suspension of the profiles involved in publishing them. It remains to be verified whether these orders have actually been complied with, whether improper copies remain online, which notifications were received and what steps were taken to stop the material from spreading.

If there has been a legally relevant omission, there must be accountability. It is necessary to establish not only who produced and published the images, but also who unlawfully helped prolong their circulation.

This is not censorship. It is a matter of requiring companies capable of reaching millions of people to take on the responsibilities that match the power they wield.

There is, moreover, a fundamental difference between denouncing a violation and reproducing it. Journalism can and should report on what happened without once again turning the victim's private life into a spectacle. Freedom of expression does not require anyone's frailty to be needlessly exposed.

The problem, however, is bigger than one influencer or one platform. It is the gradual normalization of moral violence in a society that seems to have lost part of its ability to recognize the boundaries between public and private, between curiosity and cruelty, between freedom and abuse.

The logic of engagement is beginning to replace judgment. Popularity is mistaken for legitimacy. And, in some people's minds, a follower count becomes a kind of license to cross any line.

It is a brutal inversion of values. Technology, which should broaden our opportunities for communication, knowledge and connection, also comes to serve as an instrument of dehumanization. The person disappears behind the image. Their story is reduced to a video. Their vulnerability becomes an opportunity. Their dignity gives way to the next post.

And all of this can happen to the applause of an audience that shares before it thinks.

It is not only the behavior of those who post that deserves scrutiny. The indifference of those who consume, reproduce and celebrate such exposure also helps make cruelty socially acceptable.

When moral violence comes to be treated as entertainment, the problem is no longer individual. It becomes collective.

Invoking an older person's right to keep taking part in social life to justify exposing their private life is an unacceptable inversion. Inclusion means preserving someone's autonomy, respect and dignity. It does not mean taking away their right to choose what they wish to share with the world.

The episode involving Fernando Henrique Cardoso demands a rigorous investigation, effective protection and accountability in proportion to the conduct that is proven. For those who improperly produced and published the images, for those who may have perpetuated the violation and for the platforms, whenever the legal grounds for their liability are present.

Not because of his political past, but because of the precedent that tolerating this kind of practice could set.

A civilized society is recognized, above all, by the way it treats those who are no longer able to defend their own rights. The greatness of a community is not measured solely by its capacity to innovate, generate wealth or develop technology. It is also measured by its willingness to protect the dignity of the most vulnerable.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso does not need yet another tribute. He needs his privacy to be respected.

And anyone who imagines that another human being's vulnerability can be turned into a tool for self-promotion needs to understand that there are limits that neither audiences, nor algorithms, nor notoriety give anyone the right to cross.

The real scandal lies not only in the existence of digital vultures. It lies in the environment that allows them to find food, an audience and a reward for what they do.

Old age is not a spectacle. Frailty is not an opportunity. The Constitution is not a suggestion. And human dignity is not for sale for a handful of views.

CEO ONE · https://ceoone.com.br