The D-day approach in Brazil, and the Internet has become the theatre of a war without thank you. Between a massive misinformation launched on social networks, and accusations of manipulation and financing the occult regarding the sending of millions of messages for the purpose of denigrating one of the two candidates, the second round of the 28th of October looks bleak. Lately, the brazilian federal police has decided to open several investigations concerning the circulation of false information against the two finalists of the presidential election : the great favourite, a man of far-right political Jair Bolsonaro, and his opponent of the left, Fernando Haddad.
The main battlefield of this war in the Net is WhatsApp, the instant messaging extremely popular who belongs to Facebook and has about 120 million users in Brazil, for nearly 210 million inhabitants. The daily Folha de S. Paulo revealed recently that the companies had financed the sending of hundreds of millions of messages anti-Haddad before the 1st round of the 7th of October. The companies would have to buy “contracts” for the sending of these messages to the contacts provided by specialized agencies, at a price of up to 12 million réais (€2.8 million) per contract.
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In the wake of this scandal, WhatsApp has announced the closure of more than 100 000 accounts. The justice election has opened an investigation at the request of the workers ‘ Party (PT), Fernando Haddad. Jair Bolsonaro has denied vigorously any involvement and has even threatened the newspaper that revealed the case to deprive him “of the advertising revenue of the government” if he is elected. For Jaques Wagner, a former minister of the PT who is currently leading the campaign of Fernando Haddad, this is currently happening on social networks in Brazil must serve as a lesson for democracy in the world “.
attempts of resistance
” We see it today in politics, but tomorrow, it Jokerbet may lead to a trade war, destroy firms. This is a new tool, which goes beyond the borders, ” he explained to Agence France-Presse. Ex-governor of the State of Bahia (North-East), Jaques Wagner considers that the candidacy of Fernando Haddad ” resists rather well to the bombardment of millions of robots [fake user profiles are created to boost publications] “. In the last poll published Tuesday evening by the institute Ibope, the candidate of the left has reduced by 4 percentage points to the gap that separates it from Jair Bolsonaro, who leads all the same widely, with 57 % of voting intentions, against 43% for his opponent. The influence of social networks on a ballot has already been highlighted, in 2016, at the election of Donald Trump and a referendum on the Brexit.
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Facebook, whose reputation has been sullied ever since, announced on Monday removed 68 pages and 43 accounts associated with a group pro-Bolsonaro accused of spreading false information on a large scale. Victoria Grand, senior vice-president of WhatsApp, said Tuesday to reporters in São Paulo that the messaging service did not intend to change the recipient limit for a single message in Brazil, which has been lowered recently from 250 to 20. “This number seems to us quite satisfactory,” she said, a way of responding implicitly to a critique of Jair Bolsonaro. Last week, the candidate of the extreme right were shown in a video on Facebook his intention to “fight to the limit is restored” to 250.
false information circulating faster and faster
A research group of the university of State of Rio de Janeiro, which has been analysed since may the contents of messages to groups WhatsApp pro-Bolsonaro, has found many false information, especially rumors of fraud at the electronic ballot boxes in the first round. Other messages encourage members of these groups to publish negative comments, sometimes even personal attacks, on the profiles Facebook or Instagram of famous people who have declared their support for Fernando Haddad. Jair Bolsonaro, who has nearly eight million followers on Facebook, has stepped up its campaign on the social networks after having been close to death in an attack with the weapon a month before the first round, posting the same videos from his hospital bed. For Nahema Marchal, co-author of a study of the institute of research on the Internet of the university of Oxford, ” it is very difficult to establish cause and effect links between what people see online and how they vote “. But his research indicates that ” misinformation travels faster than information duly verified on the social networks “.
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