Capítulo: State-sponsored disinformation in Brazil: Distrust and delegitimisation of the electoral system through the use of political authority Facebook accounts
Os autores analisam o uso da desinformação no Facebook da Meta por autoridades públicas brasileiras como uma arma política para promover desconfiança no sistema eleitoral antes das eleições brasileiras de 2022.
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In this chapter, we analyse the use of disinformation on Meta’s Facebook by Brazilian public authorities as a political weapon to promote distrust in the electoral system before the Brazilian elections in 2022. The far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and his followers constantly claimed that the Brazilian electronic voting machines were prone to fraud, even after several independent audits confirmed the reliability of the voting system. These claims of fraud increased after the polls showed that Bolsonaro was trailing leftist candidate Lula in the 2022 campaign. To better understand the role of authorities in this context, we analysed 89,450 posts about the electronic ballot taken from 13,471 public groups and web pages. Using social network analysis and content analysis, we found that these posts were polarised, separated into two large groups. One group had a large prevalence of Bolsonaro supporters, which included authorities and officials. Most of the content shared by this far-right group involved attacks on the electronic voting machines and the Electoral Supreme Court. These posts used the populist strategy of disinformation to mobilise followers and influence votes. The other group comprised of leftist activists and traditional media outlets who defended the democratic process. We further analysed the implications of these findings.