The main target is Mr Bolsonaro’s main opponent in the October election, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In medium-sized Bolsonaro pro-Bolsonaro groups, such as “Patriots” (11,782 subscribers) and “Bolsonaro Support Group 2022” (25,737 subscribers), the focus is on unrelenting. User has fully shared a digitally altered picture a scene in which Mr. Da Silva tops off holding hands with President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela as if they were a gay couple in the 1980s. (Do I have to say that’s wrong?)
The claims are endless and eerie: Mr. da Silva is funded by drug traffickers; He will church suppression; he’s against middle-class Brazilians who have more than one television at home. People use what they can get. One clearly satirical video – which shows an actor, disguised as a lawyer for Mr da Silva’s Workers’ Party, confessing to voter fraud – has been likened to hard evidence. The lawyer’s name, which translates to “I pretended to be them,” should have given the game away. But in the rush to demonize, Bolsonaro’s followers are not allowed to read carefully.
Beneath this frenzied activity is hardly despair in disguise. Mr. da Silva currently leads Mr. Bolsonaro in the latest poll, 41 percent to 36 percent. The reality of Mr. da Silva’s popularity was clearly too painful to bear, so Telegram users took refuge in fantasy. “Finally a real poll,” one user said, asserting that an imaginary pollster put Mr Bolsonaro in first place with 65 percent voting intent, compared with 16 percent for his opponent. When the invention of polls fails, you can always stop the race. “Fear of international arrest, Lula will give up her candidacy,” someone else claims. The dream was almost touching.
Bolsonaro’s supporters have another great minion: the Supreme Court, which has opened several investigations into the president, his sons and his allies. On Telegram, this scrutiny was not well received. People accuse the judges publicly defend rapepedophilia, murder, drug trafficking and organ trafficking. They share a Crafting images of a justice laid with Fidel Castro. Surname share an edited video in which another justice confessed that the Workers’ Party was blackmailing him for participating in a campaign in Cuba. (Justice said it – but reality is giving a bizarre example of fake news against him, a rumor that Mr Bolsonaro himself helped create.) on Twitter.)
Several steps have been taken to limit this wave of fake news. Some social networking platforms videos have been deleted from the president has spread misinformation about Covid-19 and the country’s electronic voting system. WhatsApp decides do not recommend in Brazil, a new tool called Community, gathers several group chats, until the presidential election is over. In March, the Supreme Court Telegram is banned for two days because the company ignored a court order to remove a misleading post on the country’s election system from the official presidential account (1.34 million registered). The company then agreed to adopt a number of anti-misinformation measures, including daily manual monitoring of the 100 most popular channels in Brazil and future partnerships with information verification organizations. believe. One shortcoming “fake news bill“Under consideration by the National Assembly.
