With runoff election fast approaching, Big Tech failures in Brazil leave voters awash in disinformation
As the clock ticks down to Brazil’s presidential runoff this Sunday, the high-stakes race between incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is being described as the most important election in recent history. Without a doubt, it is a stress test for the country’s three-decades-old democracy.
For Americans, following the headlines may invoke a strange sense of déjà vu. Throughout the campaign, Bolsonaro has consistently alleged, without evidence, that the country’s electronic voting system is vulnerable to widespread fraud and suggested the election is rigged against him. These claims have spawned a life of their own online, with some Brazilians openly plotting a January 6-style coup on social media if Bolsonaro loses.
“We have a full-blown Bolsonaro disinformation ecosystem,” the veteran Brazilian journalist Patrícia Campos Mello told the Columbia Journalism Review. “I am sure that, if he loses, he’s not going to accept the results. And he’s going to incite his supporters to go onto the streets.”
At the center of this so-called disinformation ecosystem are the Big Tech companies themselves. Election disinformation about Brazil is flourishing on YouTube, Facebook, Telegram, and WhatsApp. A recent study by the NGO Global Witness even found that Facebook and YouTube are approving advertisements featuring blatant election disinformation, despite repeated warnings. The tech giants are “fundamentally failing in their responsibility to stop democratic processes being undermined by false, misleading and purposeful deceit,” the organization wrote.