Brazil & Southern Cone - July 2020

‘Fake news’ and the deliberate spreading of misinformation are not the preserve of the far-right – however, there is no doubt that they are an important tool for the radical ‘bolsonarista’ movement that supports President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. A swathe of inquiries are underway in the country, investigating not only the suspected weaponisation of fake news by Bolsonaro supporters, but also the possible existence of an organised criminal structure underlying these efforts.

The 2018 presidential election, which Bolsonaro won, was marked by frequent fake news stories, and by concerns that these contributed to manipulating voter intentions [SSR-18-10]. These concerns are at the heart of a number of legal actions under consideration in Brazil’s electoral court (TSE), which question the legitimacy of the election of Bolsonaro and his vice president Hamilton Mourão. Other probes, ordered by the federal congress and the supreme court (STF), are investigating if and how fake news has been used by supporters and political allies of Bolsonaro to discredit his critics, rile up his base, and influence public debate. 

Some of the cases in the TSE date from late 2018. The investigation ordered by the STF into the use of fake news to threaten the court’s magistrates was launched in March 2019. Congress set up a mixed parliamentary committee (the ‘CPMI das fake news’) to investigate the alleged existence of an organised structure dedicated to spreading misinformation in favour of the government – a structure dubbed the ‘office of hate’ (‘o gabinete do ódio’) – in September 2019.

This three-pronged offensive on ‘bolsonarista’ fake news has come into the public eye as investigations have picked up pace in recent weeks, overlapping with each other as well as with other operations targeting allies of the president, and contributing to the escalation of tensions between the federal executive and the country’s democratic institutions. Bolsonaro, his government, and his allies, including his sons (two of whom are suspected of being involved in the ‘office of hate’), have condemned what they see as judicial persecution and ideological censorship.

• Anti-democratic rallies

Bolsonaro supporters who have promoted or attended rallies advocating the closure of congress and the supreme court (STF) are now the target of an investigation ordered by the attorney general’s office (PGR), which considers that these demonstrations, and some of the bolsonaristas’ brazen attacks on Brazil’s democratic institutions, breach the national security law, which defines crimes against the social and political order. There appears to be crossover with the fake news investigations, notably on the sources of funding and involvement of certain individuals. For example, online right-wing activist Sara Fernanda Giromini (‘Sara Winter’) was arrested in June for her role in a bolsonarista group spearheading anti-democratic acts, but has also been investigated (and charged) for threatening STF justices.

“Freedom of expression is not freedom of aggression. It is not the freedom to destroy democracy, institutions, and the dignity of others,” STF justice Alexandre de Moraes said on 17 June, during a vote concluded the following day, which maintained the court’s investigation. Earlier in May Moraes, who is the rapporteur on the case, had authorised police raids on addresses linked to supporters of Bolsonaro believed to be financing or organising misinformation aggression campaigns. The evidence collected so far “points to the real possibility of the existence of a criminal association [...] dedicated to the dissemination of fake news, offensive attacks on various people, authorities, and institutions,” Moraes had said, a view which coincides with the congressional inquiry’s investigations into the issue.

In a bid to verify the existence of such an organisation, Moraes has since ordered that the banking secrecy of several bolsonarista lawmakers be lifted, so that investigators can scrutinise their accounts. Wealthy pro-Bolsonaro businessmen have also come under scrutiny for their suspected financial contributions to such a structure.

Financing and fighting fake news

One way in which organised fake news campaigns are financed is through advertising. Investigations by the congressional committee, accessed by national media in early June, found that official government propaganda, paid for by the (now defunct) presidential communications secretariat (Secom), appeared on hundreds of “inappropriate” channels, including websites offering illegal investment opportunities and pornographic content, as well as dozens of websites known to circulate fake news. At the time, the Secom had said it was not directly responsible for where its advertisements appeared, as this was managed through Google Adsense’s algorithms. 

An independent online initiative dubbed Sleeping Giants Brasil has been targeting this source of income for websites known to manufacture fake news, such as Jornal da Cidade Online, a right-wing conservative site that was called out for publishing pro-Bolsonaro misinformation during the 2018 elections. Inspired by the identically-named movement in the US, Sleeping Giants Brasil contacts companies which advertise on such portals, often unknowingly. Since launching in May, Sleeping Giants Brasil has successfully convinced several firms, amongst them state-owned bank Banco do Brasil and US computer company Dell, to pull their ads from such websites. 

Meanwhile, separately to the CPMI das fake news, congress has been pursuing avenues to regulate misinformation through legislation. In late June, the senate was discussing a bill which would create the ‘Brazilian law on freedom, responsibility and transparency online’. Commonly referred to as the ‘fake news law’, this bill proposes combating fake news by regulating online and messaging content more stringently, notably by collecting data on social media users. This would doubtless impact the modus operandi of bolsonarista networks, and even the way President Bolsonaro communicates with his base. But the controversial bill has met with wider criticism from across civil society and the big tech sector, prompting concerns about the impact that it would have on Brazilians’ privacy, freedom of expression, and security.

Multiple concerns with fake news law

A statement signed by tech giants Google and Facebook, as well as Twitter and Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp, released on 25 June, criticised multiple aspects of the fake news bill. As well as raising concerns with the privacy and data collection aspects of requesting identification documents from social media users (a sticking point with civil society organisations), the tech companies pointed out that the bill threatens the country’s economy and innovation, describing the requirement for Brazil-based data as a “modern commercial barrier”. Congress has been asked to reconsider voting on this bill, which was on the senate’s voting agenda for 30 June at time of writing.