The current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonarohas used during the last months the same strategy used by Trump, former president of the United States, who used false news and disinformation to avoid losing the presidential elections to be held on October 2.
Fake news, disinformation and delegitimization of the electoral bodies that gave him the victory in 2018, have been one of Bolsonaro's campaign axes. Facebook, the main social network used by the Brazilian population, has been one of the most constant instruments by the current president.
Although the social networking company has stated its commitment to democracy and its rejection of disinformation and fake news, security mechanisms are weak and insufficient, according to the non-governmental organization, Global Witness.
The organization exposed a report in which it reports having tested Facebook's security controls and enforcement of Meta's policies to prevent fake news and disinformation by promoting 10 advertisements of which 5 contained fake news and 5 delegitimized the electoral process.
Despite the fact that the account from which they ran the ads 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 the need for Global Witness to argue in favor of running the ads.
The vulnerability of Facebook to the publication of 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 October 2 elections by organizing a meeting with diplomatic representatives from around 40 countries on July 19 in which he exposed for 47 minutes that the elections might not be legitimate due to alleged problems in the electronic system of the Superior Electoral Tribunal, 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 a kind of justification for some kind of extra-constitutional, 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 elections could have to do not only with not being president but the possibility of even going to prison for multiple accusations and investigations of which he is the subject.
Three are the issues for which Bolsonaro is being investigated and for which he could be prosecuted: his participation in anti-democratic acts, such as orchestrated campaigns on social networks to delegitimize the elections and to sully the political careers of his adversaries. This 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 as presidential advisors who in reality have not fulfilled that function, with the objective of appropriating those salaries. Two of his sons, who are also public officials, have been similarly questioned.
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 hold him responsible for up to 679,000 deaths.
The president's response has been to promote orders to reserve the information for 100 years or directly obstruct justice by directly interfering in the investigations.
Thus, there are many and varied reasons why Bolsonaro could go to jail if he does not win the presidential elections to be held 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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