In times of popular mobilizations in social networks, the Technology and Society Center (CTS) of FGV's Rio de Janeiro Law School carried out a survey on the use of Twitter by supreme courts worldwide. Coordinated by project leader Peter Belchior, the study shows that the profile of Brazil's Federal Supreme Court (@STF_oficial), created in 2009, is the most active.

Virtually the profiles of all constitutional courts in the world were analyzed for the survey. Among them, the ten active countries on Twitter are: Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, the United Kingdom, Dominican Republic and Venezuela. From these, Brazil tops the list of the most popular, with about 390,000 followers.

But it is not only in number of interested users that the profile stands out. @STF_oficial is also the only one that covers trials in real time. CTS' research indicates that, between January 2012 and August this year, the Federal Supreme Court registered more than 2,700 tweets, and the peaks coincided with the trials agenda. Themes such as Ficha Limpa, abortion legalization and Mensalão were the focus.

For the study's coordinator, this monitoring is certainly one more way of trying to bring people closer to Justice. In addition, according to him, the country is going through a highly sensitive time in its democracy and public power increasingly feels more pressure, which reflects in its positioning in social networks. New tools to communicate with society and to guarantee a minimum transparency are essential, under penalty of losing the credibility of public institutions, says Peter Belchior.