If in the electoral year of 2018, the fake-news which circulated the most on social media platforms were related to the candidates themselves, the current misinformation questions the electoral process itself, according to the specialists interviewed by Brasil de Fato. The recent and constant mudslinging by the president and his allies about the alleged unreliability of electronic voting machines illustrates this.

It’s no coincidence that this agenda is also prevalent in the far-right groups of the deeper layers of Telegram. In these more underground platforms, the far-right has complete dominance. “And the most shared [content], the topics and narratives that have the most prominence in the groups that we analyze are not those directly connected with the allegation of frauds in the electronic voting machines, but with those that question the legitimacy of the institutions that guarantee the result of the election,” says Letícia Cesarino, professor and researcher in the Anthropology Department and in the Program in Social Anthropology (PPGAS) of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC).

In his latest statement, Bolsonaro affirmed that the Liberal Party, of which he is a part, will hire a private company to audit the elections. “The company will ask the TSE [the Supreme Electoral Court] for some information. What could happen? This company, that does such auditing all over the world, can reach the conclusion that, with what they have access to, it was impossible to audit. Look at how far this could go,” Bolsonaro said.

The post The recipe for misinformation in the 2022 Brazilian elections : Peoples Dispatch appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.