As Brazil’s presidential election reaches its second round, support for rabid, homophobic extremist Jair Bolsonaro is being whipped up by an unprecedented tide of ‘fake news’, distributed on social media, particularly WhatsApp, writes Sue Branford.
‘Fake news’ is reaching millions of Brazilians, particularly through WhatsApp, which is used by 44% of the population to obtain their political information, according to a recent survey.
So much ‘fake news’ is reaching voters that it must be affecting the outcome of the election.
The allegations they are making about Haddad and the PT may seem wild to many of us, but they have been especially honed to appeal to the deeply ingrained social prejudices of potential Bolsonaro supporters. They are being believed by millions of people.
In August Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who is a close aide to his father, boasted on Instagram of meeting Steve Bannon, the man behind Trump’s victory. Later he said that Bannon had offered to help his father’s campaign: ‘The support involves internet tips, perhaps an analysis, interpreting data, this kind of thing’.
In August of this year, shortly before the first round of the elections, the top ten items of ‘fake news’ were shared 865,000 times.
To give a recent example of ‘fake news’: on 15 October the fabricators circulated a video of Haddad stepping out of a yellow Ferrari.The caption with the faked video was worded to stoke the widespread belief among Bolsonaro followers that, while PT politicians talk the talk of social justice, they are, in reality, are just as corrupt and scandalously wealthy as all other politicians from the Brazilian establishment.
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-The dynamic is so similar to what’s happening in the U.S., the U.K. and in 
Western Europe, where you see this spread of extremism and this rise of right-wing fanaticism, and the media outlets and the establishment factions that have laid the groundwork for its rise refuse to take any responsibility. And that’s definitely the case here in Brazil, where a very oligarchical media is in the hands of a small number of very rich families and has sown the seeds and has kind of created the climate in which Bolsonaro’s victory is possible- Glenn Greenwald
Brazil: A wave of homophobic attacks in wake of far-right candidate’s win Since the October 7 first round of Brazil’s presidential elections, which saw far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro likely to win the presidency, some of his supporters have set upon LGBT people and minorities on social media as well as in the streets. Homophobic, racist and anti-semitic inscriptions …Similar reports appeared online throughout the week
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In the early morning of Monday, October 8, Moa do Katende, the well-known capoeira master, was murdered in the city of Salvador by a Bolsonaro supporter who did not appreciate hearing the master voice his support for Haddad (the PT candidate).
Bolsonaro has announced that Indigenous land rights will be abolished when he becomes president and the Amazon will be fully opened to business.
The Free 
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