Focal points of hate and disinformation
Regulations against hate crimes already exist in Brazil, including criminalisation of racism, homophobia and severe penalties for violence against women. However, institutions tall short in enforcing the legislation. Therefore, hate spreads in many different directions and with impunity, boosted by the disinformation ecosystem. Often, as described earlier, it springs out of the acute political polarisation of the country and deep routes of conservatism and religious fundamentalism. This section identifies three different categories or focal points where hate and disinformation intertwine.
Women as a target
Brazil has one case of violence against women every four minutes, according to official data from the Ministry of Health (Gama Cubas, Zaremba, and Amancio 2019). Gender discrimination, misogyny and violence migrate from the offline culture to the online culture. We bring a few cases to illustrate it:
Fabiane de Jesus was killed by an angry mob after the popular Facebook page Guaruja Alerta (then with 50,000 followers) endorsed a disinformation piece saying that a woman was kidnapping babies to perform ‘black magic’ rituals and provided a drawn description of the alleged woman. The page was well known among the locals in that beach town, and a reliable source of news. Some people thought Fabiane looked like the woman in question (she didn’t). The mob then performed a lynching that led to her death. Fabiane’s husband was able to bring five men to justice who were involved in the lynching, but was not able to get the owner of the Facebook page (later disabled) to take responsibility for sharing the fake drawn description.
Bruna da Silva, the mother of Marcos Vinicius da Silva, a teenager who was killed by the police in Rio de Janeiro during a raid at the favela Complexo da Mare while wearing his school uniform, had her life devastated twice. Once with her son’s death, and another when fake news about him started to spread on social media. After he was killed, at least 17 Facebook profiles (“Justiya Ordena Que Facebook” 2018) accused the boy of drug trafficking, and several take photos and texts started to spread on social media, including a photo shared by thousands of people of a boy who allegedly looked like Marcos Vinicius holding a gun
(Lang 2018). To the BBC ((Gama Cubas, Zaremba, and Amancio 2019), Bruna said that this defamation by fake news was a “second death” of her son. Days after he was killed (Franco 2019), a court decision demanded Facebook remove the disinformation from the platform and identify those spreading it. As the lawsuit is confidential, it is impossible to determine which links were comprised in the judicial decision. But, despite which links were targeted or not, it is worth mentioning that it is still possible to find two types of disinformation connected to this case online: (i) Facebook posts that were removed from the platform but are still available through VPN tools3 or from outside Brazil; and (ii) Facebook posts that are still published and reachable without VPN at all (“Justiya Ordena Que Facebook” 2018). Although it is not possible to find the total reach of the disinformation against Bruna’s son (as many posts were deleted), one of the main posts is still accessible via VPN. A second post was shared in a popular Facebook group called “NOTICIAS DE NOVA IGUAfyU E REGlAO” with more than 100,000 members and is still reachable by members of the group.
Aninha Mount (Domingos 2017), a conservative young woman from a small town with 14,000 inhabitants, was forced to do HIV testing and publish results on her Facebook page, after WhatsApp rumours in her own small town spread saying that she was infected by the virus and was intentionally having sexual relationships with men in the town without protection, and without letting them know her status. This is a case about a very common practice of disinformation that adapts fast, given that the author of the story created a photo of Aninha to illustrate a fake WhatsApp profile, together with a fabricated conversation where she allegedly confirms her intention. The story was adapted to different contexts several times. Aninha was able to identify that the fake news piece about her had been edited (whenever it reached another small town, people changed the name of the city where she would allegedly reside to update the fake story and cause panic in the local community). Despite reporting this to police authorities, Aninha was never able to identify the original creator of fabricated screenshot.
Women’s health at the centre of disinformation. In 2016, Fabiane Vasconccl- los, who was running for a seat at the Brazilian National Congress, made a video claiming that the mammography exam causes thyroid cancer, and that it is an effect of the “medical mafia bosses”. This is a case in which a woman distributes disinformation on an issue related to women’s health, based on conspiracy theories spread on the web. While the original video cannot be found, the rumours restarted in 2017 (“Fayam Mamografia Com Proteyao” 2017).
Women political figures are an even greater target. Among them, we could cite vice-president candidate Manuela D’Avila, Rio councilwoman Marielle Franco, former Environment Minister Marina Silva:
Manuela D’Avila, vice-president candidate on the Workers Party ticket in 2018, was considered one of the biggest targets of disinformation in the Brazilian elections. On one occasion only, Manuela’s attorney requested the Brazilian Electoral Justice remove 33 Facebook publications that accumulated 146,480 shares and 5,190,942 visualisations (Brigido 2018). Pieces included alleged connections of Manuela with Jair Bolsonaro’s stabber, abortion claims, fake materials accusing her of paedophilia and many more.
Marielle Franco, the Rio councilwoman who was ambushed by armed militia and killed, suffered a massive disinformation campaign in the next few hours after her death. Stories included a disinformation piece spread on WhatsApp saying that Marielle had been married to a top drug dealer of one of Rio’s favelas and was associated with the traffic. This story was shared on Facebook by Rio de Janeiro court judge Marilia Castro Neves and tweeted by Federal Representative Alberto Fraga (DEM-DF). In another case, a YouTube video with more than 3,000 views claimed that she had received campaign money from the Red Command, one of Rio’s biggest criminal groups (Nalon and Cunha 2018). The original story of her alleged involvement with the Red Command was posted by alternative fact website Ceticismo Politico (“Ceticismo Politico”) and before being removed, had more than 400,000 shares (“Post mais compartilhado” 2018).
Marina Silva, former presidential candidate by REDE, suffered severe disinformation attacks by the Workers Party in the 2014 elections. During the 2018 campaign, the same disinformation pieces were recycled by the far-right in 2018. Pieces included news that her husband was involved in grave deforestation accusations (for context, Marina Silva is considered a champion on anti-deforestation efforts in Brazil, reducing it by up to 80% in the seven years she stayed in office). But disinformation about Marina also covered themes like her involvement with evangelical groups, claims that she would make abortion a crime for any case in Brazil and that she herself was involved in corruption scandals.
