The chief goal is Mr. Bolsonaro’s predominant opponent in October’s elections, the previous president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In medium-size pro-Bolsonaro teams, corresponding to “The Patriots” (11,782 subscribers) and “Bolsonaro 2022 help group” (25,737 subscribers), the main target is unrelenting. Customers exhaustively shared a digitally altered image of a shirtless Mr. da Silva holding palms with President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela as if they’d been a gay couple within the Eighties. (Do I have to say it’s false?)
The claims are limitless, and outlandish: Mr. da Silva is sponsored by drug traffickers; he’ll persecute church buildings; he’s in opposition to middle-class Brazilians having a couple of tv at house. Individuals use what they’ll get. An clearly satirical video — which exhibits an actor, within the guise of an legal professional for Mr. da Silva’s Staff’ Social gathering, confessing to electoral fraud — is paraded as chilly onerous proof. The identify of the legal professional, which interprets as one thing like “I Mock Them,” ought to have given the sport away. However of their rush to demonize, Mr. Bolsonaro’s followers aren’t precisely given to shut studying.
Underlying this frenetic exercise is barely disguised desperation. Mr. da Silva presently leads Mr. Bolsonaro within the newest ballot, 41 p.c to 36 p.c. The truth of Mr. da Silva’s recognition is clearly too painful to bear, so Telegram customers take refuge in fantasy. “Lastly an actual ballot,” one person stated, asserting that an imaginary pollster put Mr. Bolsonaro in first place with 65 p.c of voting intentions, in opposition to 16 p.c for his opponent. When inventing polls received’t do, you possibly can all the time name off the race. “Afraid of a global arrest, Lula goes to surrender his candidacy,” one other claimed. The wishfulness is nearly touching.
Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters have one other nice boogeyman: the Supreme Courtroom, which has opened a number of investigations of the president, his sons and his allies. On Telegram, this scrutiny has not been nicely obtained. Individuals accuse the justices of publicly defending rape, pedophilia, murder, drug trafficking and organ trafficking. They share a manipulated image of 1 justice posing with Fidel Castro. They share an edited video during which one other justice confesses that the Staff’ Social gathering is blackmailing him for taking part in an orgy in Cuba. (The justice did say that — however was really giving a weird instance of faux information in opposition to him, a rumor that Mr. Bolsonaro himself helped to create on Twitter.)
Just a few steps have been taken to curb this deluge of faux information. Some social media platforms have been eradicating movies from the president that unfold misinformation about Covid-19 and the nation’s digital voting system. WhatsApp determined to not introduce in Brazil a brand new device referred to as Communities, which gathers a number of teams chats, till the presidential election is over. In March, the Supreme Courtroom banned Telegram for 2 days as a result of the corporate had been ignoring the court docket’s request to take away a deceptive put up on the nation’s electoral system from the president’s official account (1.34 million subscribers). The corporate then agreed to undertake a couple of anti-misinformation measures, together with a every day guide monitoring of the 100 hottest channels in Brazil and a future partnership with fact-checking organizations. A flawed “pretend information invoice” is being thought-about by Congress.
