Brazil fights against fake news

Fake News during election time in Brazil. Electoral court orders Facebook to remove links to 33 fake news that target Fernando Haddad's vice-presidential candidate.

As Brazil approaches the climax of its most bitter and polarized election in recent history, academics and digital activists struggling to stem a rising tide of fake news say accurate coverage of the campaign risks being drowned out by the volume of lies spread across the country. Facebook. and WhatsApp.

On Monday, Brazil's electoral court ordered Facebook to remove links to 33 fake news stories targeting Manuela D'Ávila, a communist party politician and vice-presidential candidate for Fernando Haddad of the Workers' Party (PT). .

D'Ávila's party hailed the decision as a victory, but a digital media expert said it was a mere drop in the ocean.

"That's nothing. It’s irrelevant amid lies and attacks in this election,” said Pablo Ortellado, a professor of public policy at the University of São Paulo who leads a project monitoring public debate on social media. “There is very little correct information.”

Haddad – who replaced party founder Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as presidential candidate – received 29% of the vote in the first round of elections on Sunday, behind right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro, who received 46%. The two men face a second round on October 28.

In the electoral court ruling, judge Sérgio Banhos gave Facebook 24 hours to provide the IP addresses of the computers used to register the accounts that posted the fake news – and the personal details of the page administrators. Facebook said it would comply with the ruling and the links have since been removed.

According to court documents, the pages included videos edited to include images of a demonstration in Rio de Janeiro, images of two naked people kicking crucifixes, D'Ávila talking about an anti-homophobia campaign and “images that hypersexualized children.”

Court documents said the film asked the viewer: “She wants to be vice president of Lula's Workers' party. What do you think?"