Social Media War in Brazil Pushes Far-Right Candidate Toward Presidency
Social Media War in Brazil Pushes Far-Right Candidate Toward Presidency
BY
Michael Fox,
Truthout
PUBLISHED
October 21, 2018
Gviovani Baffo is a poet and a street artist in Sao Paulo’s trendy Vila Madalena neighborhood. With a thick, unkempt beard and a red Nike t-shirt, he is not the prototypical image of a political analyst. But his words just days before the first round of Brazil’s presidential election on October 7 were wisdom far beyond that of most political pundits.
“Our election will not be decided by the candidates’ proposals or their speeches. It will be decided by the lies spread online,” he told Truthout, under the thick grey sky of the country’s largest city. “The Brazilian elections will be decided by the ability of some groups to push ‘fake news’ and the ability of us [voters] to discern what is and what is not real.”
The day before Baffo uttered this prediction, former Sao Paulo Mayor and leftist Workers Party candidate Fernando Haddad had held a press conference to denounce a barrage of distorted information against his campaign, himself and his family, particularly spread over the Facebook-owned messaging application WhatsApp.
Haddad announced that his team had opened a WhatsApp hotline to receive complaints of false or misleading news and memes over the platform. Within 24 hours, they received 15,000 messages.
More:
https://truthout.org/articles/social-media-war-in-brazil-pushes-far-right-candidate-toward-presidency/