If Facebook bolstered the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election to the White House, the rise of Brazil’s far-right firebrand Jair Bolsonaro owes more to the messaging app WhatsApp. The difference, however, was that the Brexit and Trump campaigns relied on algorithms to create echo chambers, whereas Bolsonaro’s did not. Instead, his campaign assembled a human infrastructure to create a pro-Bolsonaro environment on WhatsApp and spread mis- and disinformation to bolster his candidacy.Although such human infrastructure worked on disinformation campaigns to favor Jair Bolsonaro, I cannot affirm that they were affiliated with Jair Bolsonaro himself or his political party, the Social Liberal Party (PSL).
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Source: The Human Infrastructure of Fake News in Brazil | Items