Happy New Year! We finished 2021 by looking ahead, with Mark’s blog post surveying the broad landscape of misinformation. For the first Weekly Wrap of 2022, we thought we’d look in more detail at one of the countries he mentioned: Brazil. Kinzen works with lots of expert researchers around the world. For Brazil, one of those is Leticia Duarte. I asked her a couple of questions about what to expect ahead of the elections in the country later this year:

Looking ahead to the election later this year, how are you seeing misinformation evolve in Brazil right now?

Election misinformation has been a hot topic in the country since the 2018 election, and it is likely to become even more aggressive as we approach the presidential election in October. Brazil's extreme-right president Bolsonaro has consistently cast doubt on the integrity of the Brazilian voting system, using the Trump playbook. He already said he would only leave power in 2022 dead or victorious, and some of his supporters have called for military intervention to keep Bolsonaro in power by force if he loses. 

The health of Bolsonaro has also inspired disinformation on both left and right. Last Monday, for example, he went to the hospital to treat an intestinal obstruction, a recurrent problem since he was stabbed in the abdomen during the electoral campaign in 2018. His supporters used social media to revive conspiracy theories that leftist parties were behind the attack and had a plan to kill Bolsonaro. Meantime, his opponents shared the hashtag #fakeada (combining the words fake and stab) to allege that the stabbing never happened, that it was a plot from Bolsonaro's campaign to blame enemies and avoid political debates. In two investigations, the Federal Police concluded that Adelio Bispo, the man who stabbed Bolsonaro, was mentally ill and acted alone. But President Bolsonaro did not like the conclusions and pressured for the case to reopen, so now there's an ongoing third investigation. 

More and more, facts are being replaced by conspiracy theories, and we have enough reasons to worry about the future of Brazilian democracy. 

How are groups mobilising online ahead of the election? 

We have seen two types of mobilization. 

On one hand, groups worried about disinformation have pressured the platforms for bolder actions to remove problematic content. The Supreme Court is investigating disinformation networks, and last August the Superior Electoral Court ordered the demonetization of 14 YouTube channels notorious for spreading election disinformation. Actors such as Sleeping Giants Brasil recently started promoting a hashtag accusing Brazil Twitter of supporting misinformation by not removing it with the same rigor as in other countries. They criticized the platform for not offering an option to report posts with pandemic-related misinformation, which has been available for six months in the United States. The company has also not banned disinformation influencers and has recently verified some far-right profiles under investigation by the Brazilian Supreme Court. The hashtag #TwitterApoiaFakeNews ("Twitter supports fake news"), had more than 30,000 mentions this week. As a result of the campaign, federal prosecutors are calling on Twitter now to give explanations. 

On the other hand, Bolsonaro supporters have attacked the platforms, the Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court, accusing them of censoring conservative voices when acting to remove disinformation. Bolsonaro's administration even issued a decree designed to prevent the platforms from removing ​misinformation. It ended up being suspended by the Supreme Court, but there are other bills in Congress aiming to protect their alleged right to spread disinformation. So this is an ongoing battle.

For Your Headphones This Weekend

David Kaye appears on the latest episode from Internet of Humans, with Jillian York & Konstantinos Komaitis. Kaye is the author of a book we previously recommended, Speech Police: The Global Struggle to Govern the Internet, and has served as the special rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression for the UN. So his voice is always worth listening to. Check it out here.

And on a recent episode of Kara Swisher’s Sway, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo spoke about the challenges of content moderation. He argues that so much of these tough decisions come down to subjectivity in the end. Still, he also argues for transparency. Listen here.

Editor’s Pick: Book Slot

We hear so much these days about polarization and social platforms. This week I’ve been reading Ezra Klein’s Why We’re Polarized, which focuses in detail on the United States. Instead of looking at social platforms, he examines other reasons for growing polarization in the country. He looks back to the 1960’s, and the Democratic Party’s embrace of the civil rights movement as the beginnings of the polarization that we are all so accustomed to now. He says this is a “powerful reminder that there are worse things than polarization, that what’s now remembered as a golden age in American politics was purchased at a terrible cost”, ie, racial inequality.

For more of a deep dive into questions around social platforms and polarization, I always recommend Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing by Chris Bail.

Recommended Articles: From the Kinzen Slack channels this week

The Wire. Tek Fog: An App With BJP Footprints for Cyber Troops to Automate Hate, Manipulate Trends

This is an extraordinary investigation into a secretive but powerful app created by India’s ruling BJP party. It’s used to hijack trends on major platforms like Facebook and Twitter, directing targeted harassment at female journalists, and promoting fake stories. 

And below, a number of stories reflecting on the events of January 6, 2021. For an authoritative account of events on that day, I recommend The New York Times visual investigations piece, Day of Rage.

Boston Globe. Jan. 6 proved that what happens online doesn’t stay online

Claire Wardle looks back a year and also forward to the challenges that lie ahead. She writes, "Disinformation causes real-world harm, and while much of it exists online, the most impactful disinformation is participatory."

The New York Times. America’s Most Urgent Threat Now Comes From Within

Cynthia Miller-Idriss argues that there needs to be "a public health approach to preventing violent extremism". Instead of asking security and intelligence officials to deal with these issues, we should empower local community leaders who can offer support and guidance to people before they become radicalised. 

The Hill. DHS Secretary: U.S. seeing growing connection between disinformation and domestic extremism

This week, ​​Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that there is a growing connection between disinformation and domestic extremism in the US. Yet another warning for everyone to note.