Brazil election: How 'Lula's Army' WhatsApp channel helped turn race around | Hacker News Reader

Brazil election: How 'Lula's Army' WhatsApp channel helped turn race around

bbc.com

4 pointsrbanffy5 comments

Honestly a bit scary. But sadly the right has been using similar tactics for a while. As we head off to a post-truth society, where lying doesn't matter and crime has no consequences, you either play the game or you lose. You can expect politics to continue to get more polarized, more intense, more fake (disinformation is absolutely rampant) and more real at the same time (biggest gatherings ever in major cities).

The constant disinformation is indeed a bit scary, everything was so intense it was like a colosseum out there. But it's not an insurmountable problem. I think it's the censorship that is genuinely terrifying.

Lula's Army was ultimately allowed to stand after several court maneuvers involving judges overruling each other, but nobody even attempted to create an equivalent for Bolsonaro. After 2022 everybody knows what would happen if someone like Nikolas tried this.

Nobody even attempted to create an equivalent yet. There have been several large proliferators of disinformation with huge followings on social media, youtube, podcasts. Lula's army is perhaps the biggest united front yet. But you can be sure something equivalent will appear on the right, following its success.

It's already been done. The left used to refer to right wing social media organization as "digital militias". The "soldiers" were called "cattle". Pretty ironic to witness the formation of a "Lula's Army" now. They even recruited here on HN.

The right wing was extensively censored in 2022 despite political censorship being unconstitutional. Lula promised to "regulate" social media next year. I'm seeing leftists talking about "shutting up" people on social media. It's becoming increasingly clear what's going to happen in the near future.

There was no fake news on the channel though... The idea was more to control social networks algorithm and isolate the opposition. With tips like: don't engage, etc.

For us here, who understand a little more how social network algo works, it's quite obvious. But most people don't understand.

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