by BRETT HEINZ
Meta is the king of the social media world. Not only is the company’s flagship product, Facebook, the world’s largest social networking platform, but two of its other properties — WhatsApp and Instagram — are also in the top five. With this popularity has come significant controversy, especially regarding the role Meta’s platforms play in disseminating political disinformation and “fake news.”
Lying is hardly a new development in politics, but social media companies have created new opportunities for powerful actors to spread lies at an unprecedented scale and speed. In Brazil, Meta’s platforms were used as tools for nationwide disinformation campaigns that helped far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro win the 2018 presidential election. Facing widespread criticism over this and similar campaigns elsewhere, Meta said it would take decisive action to stem the spread of lies. Yet the evidence so far suggests that disinformation continues to run rampant on its Brazilian platforms.
This time around, the tidal wave of “fake news” circulating on Meta’s social media platforms is helping to promote Bolsonaro’s Trump-like effort to discredit this Sunday’s presidential election, which polls suggest he will ultimately lose. This new, largely unchecked disinformation campaign could have devastating consequences for Brazil, and for the planet.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Posts
A national law passed in 2017 made a number of changes to Brazilian electoral law, including a reform that allowed candidates to pay to boost content on social media. While this measure moved forward, another controversial proposal to require social media companies to remove “fake news” and hate speech was vetoed by then (interim) president Michel Temer. In other words, while restrictions on online campaigning were loosened, online disinformation remained unchecked.
When the 2018 election season began, online disinformation campaigns became nearly unavoidable. According to a former data scientist at Facebook, the platform’s enforcement efforts often fell far short of its own guidelines – yet this limited effort still identified and removed “10.5 million fake reactions and fans from high-profile politicians in Brazil and the US in the 2018 elections …” Facebook campaigns were only the tip of the iceberg; Meta’s other platforms would pose an even larger problem.
In a scandal that broke after the first round of Brazil’s 2018 elections, it was revealed that wealthy businessmen had illegally funded an operation obtaining millions of phone numbers from Facebook and sending political disinformation to their WhatsApp accounts. The app is widely popular in Brazil as a free alternative to text messaging, and 48 percent of online Brazilians rely on it as a source of news.
The scale of the WhatsApp campaign was enormous.