The current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, has used in recent months the same strategy as Trump, former US president, who used fake news and misinformation to avoid losing the presidential elections that will take place on October 2.
Fake news, misinformation and the delegitimisation of the electoral bodies that gave him victory in 2018 have been one of the main themes of Bolsonaro's campaign. Facebook, the main social network used by the Brazilian population, has been one of the most constant instruments used by the current president.
Although the social media company has expressed its commitment to democracy and its rejection of disinformation and fake news, its security mechanisms are weak and insufficient, according to the non-governmental organization Global Witness.
The organization published a report in which it reports having tested the security controls and the application of Meta policies on Facebook to prevent fake news and misinformation by promoting 10 advertisements, of which 5 contained fake news and 5 delegitimized the electoral process.
Even though the account from which the ads were posted was not logging into Facebook from Brazil, was not paying for the ads with Brazilian currency, and was not even verified, the ads were approved by the social network without Global Witness having to argue in favor of posting the ads.
Facebook’s vulnerability to disinformation and electoral delegitimization campaigns has been widely exploited by Bolsonaro and his supporters. The president has gone further in his attempts to delegitimize the elections on October 2 by organizing a meeting with diplomatic representatives from around 40 countries on July 19 in which he explained for 47 minutes that the elections might not be legitimate due to alleged problems in the electronic system of the Superior Electoral Court, the highest electoral authority in the country.
The strategy of delegitimizing the elections seems to be a response to the results of the polls that place the leftist leader Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, who has already been the country's first president, above the current president.
"It's a lie with the sole purpose of discrediting or delegitimizing the elections that he might lose, and creating some kind of justification for some kind of extraconstitutional, illegal or even violent effort to reverse the outcome of the elections or even cancel them," Steven Levitsky, professor of Latin American Studies at Harvard University, told BBC News Brazil.
Bolsonaro's concern about losing the election may have to do not only with the fact that he is not president, but also with the possibility of even going to prison due to the multiple accusations and investigations he is the subject of.
Bolsonaro is being investigated and could be prosecuted for three reasons: his participation in anti-democratic acts, such as orchestrated campaigns on social media to delegitimize the elections and to tarnish the political careers of his opponents. This is according to investigations by the Federal Police.
He has also been questioned and is under investigation for acts of corruption. According to an investigation, the president may have had people on his payroll of presidential advisers who have not actually fulfilled that role, with the aim of appropriating those salaries. Similar questions have been raised against two of his sons, who are also public officials.
In addition, the Senate has considered that his statements and handling of the COVID-19 pandemic did not contain the spread of the virus but rather accelerated it, which is why they consider him responsible for up to 679 thousand deaths.
The President's response has been to push for orders to reserve information for 100 years or to directly obstruct justice by directly interfering in investigations.
There are many and varied reasons why Bolsonaro could end up in prison if he does not win the presidential elections that will take place in October.
Ingrid Sanchez. Journalist and Latin Americanist. She has worked on issues of social movements, gender and violence.
Twitter: @infingritum
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