Brazil’s election conversation is rife with misinformation

Disinformation regarding President Jair Bolsonaro and ex-leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is having a big influence three months before the Brazilian presidential election.

Verifying information has become even more difficult as a result of the proliferation of fake news, the emergence of new social media platforms, and the proliferation of ever-more-complex content.

Between January and June, AFP fact-checked more than four times as much content as previously.

The coronavirus was the initial subject of study for those who fabricate election-related misinformation.

Comprova information verification coordinator Sergio Ludtke remarked, “The electoral content has taken over the space” previously dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The epidemic was certainly a moment of testing for these people” producing fake news, he noted, stressing that it subsequently became “a political event.”

“Much more challenging” than it was four years ago, as October’s election approaches.

Joyce Souza, a digital communication specialist at the University of Sao Paulo, claimed that “covid misinformation took on a new shape that infiltrated politics, the economics, and science.”