Leftist’s party urges Brazil authorities to act on WhatsApp election messages
Allegations of a dirty tricks campaign on WhatsApp is dominating Brazil’s presidential election race, turning attention to social media manipulation following abuses uncovered in the US election and Britain’s Brexit referendum two years ago.
Trailing leftist candidate Fernando Haddad accused the far-right frontrunner, Jair Bolsonaro, of “illegal” electoral tactics after a report that companies were poised to unleash a flood of WhatsApp messages attacking him and his Workers’ Party (PT).
Bolsonaro denied the allegation, tweeting that the Haddad’s Workers Party “isn’t being hurt by fake news, but by the TRUTH.”
The exchange happened just over a week before a run-off election that polls predict Bolsonaro will likely win comfortably.
Ordinary Brazilians told reporters that some in their families or entourage swallowed some misinformation from WhatsApp – but denied they themselves were being influenced.
“We get a lot of news, even false news, but some true, about politics but I don’t think it changes very much in terms of making decisions,” said Ana Clara Valle, a 27-year-old engineer in Rio.
She said she was voting for Bolsonaro because of his Catholic, pro-family stance, not because of any “extreme right” sensibility.
Andre de Souza, a 35-year-old lawyer leaning toward voting for Bolsonaro, said he receives around 500 WhatsApp messages a day for and against both candidates.
The rumours and false information “don’t make a difference to me,” he said, but added: “My mother received a WhatsApp message saying Bolsonaro was doing away with [mandatory] end-of-year salary bonuses, and she believed it!”
There are 120 million WhatsApp user accounts in Brazil, whose population is 210 million. The app is a wildly popular communication tool between friends, families and work colleagues, outstripping even Facebook -–which owns WhatsApp – in usage.
Haddad made his accusation after Brazil’s widest circulation newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, reported it had discovered contracts worth up to US$3.2 million each for companies to send out bulk WhatsApp messages attacking the PT.
“We have identified a campaign of slander and defamation via WhatsApp and, given the mass of messages, we know that there was dirty money behind it, because it wasn’t registered with the Supreme Electoral Tribunal,” Haddad told a press conference in São Paulo. Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Tiago Ayres, told the financial daily Valor
Econômico there was no evidence of any connection between the companies mentioned by Folha de São Paulo and the campaign.
The row shone a light on an issue that has become a pressing one in democracies: the organised abuse of social media to sway public opinion in countries.
Facebook is the most prominent company that has come under scrutiny, though Twitter has also come in for criticism.
The platforms have made an effort to clean up who uses their services after evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 US election that saw Trump triumph, and accusations Facebook allowed user data to be harvested to bolster the campaign the same year for Britain to leave the European Union.
Andre de Souza, a 35-year-old lawyer, says he receives around 500 WhatsApp messages a day for and against both candidates.