00:09Welcome back to From the South.
00:11Brazil is just hours away from the general election.
00:14As the country prepares to go to the polls,
00:17questions remain about the security of its electronic voting system
00:21and the protection of electoral data.
00:23To discuss these and other key issues we are joined by Tika Moreno,
00:27sociologist, popular educator and feminist activist.
00:30Tika Moreno, welcome to From the South.
00:37Hello, good afternoon, thank you for receiving it.
00:41Well Tika, I would like to ask you first,
00:43Brazilian authorities have once again raised concerns
00:46about the possibility of atoms to undermine the electoral process.
00:50How significant is this risk that such efforts could emerge
00:55through the digital sphere?
01:00Yes, so the digital sphere is one of the main battlefields
01:05during these elections.
01:06It's not like the main one, but one of the main ones.
01:10And we need to understand that any possibility
01:13to external interference during our elections
01:17to also going through this digital sphere.
01:21because nowadays we are living in a situation
01:24that the debate, the political debate,
01:27is going through the digital platforms, social media,
01:31WhatsApp and etc.
01:32And they are controlled by the big techs,
01:36and the big techs now are totally merged
01:38with the imperialist power of the US.
01:40So they control this sphere, the digital sphere.
01:45And what we know is that they are not,
01:48they are doing a lot of impulse to the contents
01:54that are against the left, against Lula,
01:57and they are doing more push on the contents
02:00that are for the far right.
02:02And the way they are doing this is not only in this electoral context,
02:07but because the far right here in Brazil,
02:10through the social media and the digital platforms,
02:13they have a very well established network
02:16to distribute and disseminate this kind of content
02:20as misinformation, fake news and etc.
02:23Contents that are full of hate, misogynistic
02:27and transphobic perspectives,
02:30and a lot of attacks against the left.
02:34So any kind of interference,
02:38of trying to delegitimize our voting here,
02:47will go through the same network of the far right
02:51that they are building not only in this context,
02:55but through the whole year.
02:57And this is a very well established network of hate
03:01and far right in our Brazilian society.
03:04So yeah, the digital sphere is one of the main ones
03:07that will operate together with others.
03:10And Ms. Tique Moreno,
03:12how prepared are Brazil's electoral authorities
03:16to protect the electronic voting system,
03:18the integrity of the vote,
03:19and the security of electoral data
03:22against potential cyber attacks
03:23or other forms of digital interference?
03:28Well, our authorities are very well prepared.
03:32Our electoral voting system,
03:35they are audited,
03:37we have all the security that we have,
03:40the cryptography of each voting place,
03:45and also we have different ways of combining
03:49the voting that are going to be sent digitally,
03:53and they are printed in each place of voting.
03:58Of course, we have one concern.
04:01As you may know, we have in Brazil,
04:04part of the North region,
04:07we have Starlink,
04:10one company that is connected to Starlink,
04:12that are going to do the transmission of the voting.
04:19And as we know, and it's well documented,
04:22that there's no way that they are going to change the results,
04:27but it's very easy for them to start questioning the results,
04:33because they have this kind of power to be the company that are connecting,
04:41sending and transferring the election results.
04:46But Brazilian voting systems are very safe,
04:49and this is audited,
04:51and we have different ways to reinforce our voting system,
04:56and this is not a problem,
04:59and this is part of what the authorities in Brazil are well prepared to handle.
05:06Tiga, related now with the electoral results,
05:10how could the spread of AI-generated content and disinformation
05:14during and after the election affect the public confidence in the results,
05:18and what measures are being taken to prevent atoms to undermine that trust?
05:25Yes, as you can see,
05:27both the Supreme Court and the Electoral Supreme Court
05:32are daily following what happened in the digital sphere,
05:36including with AI content.
05:38We know that the big techs have a lot of power in this,
05:43so we had just a research that was released this week
05:49that showed that around only 12% of the content against the left,
05:55against Lula, and even against Zanja, her partner, his partner,
06:01that are AI-generated, that has the announce that is AI-generated.
06:09So this is a battle.
06:10So the big techs are not doing their work
06:13because they're not going to do their work.
06:15But the Supreme Court, our power, the judicial legal power,
06:22are there following each day.
06:24But this is a battle.
06:25And in this battle, I think that now we are well prepared,
06:31more than in the previous situation that we've been through.
06:35Our Supreme Court, they already showed and followed all the process
06:41when we had the far right try to do a coup here
06:46after Lula was elected in the previous elections.
06:53So they are well prepared now to follow each part of it.
06:57Thank you, Tika, for your time and your information for us here from the South.
07:04Thank you once again for your time.
07:07Ladies and gentlemen, that was Tika Moreno, sociologist, popular educator and feminist activist.
07:13We continue.
