00:00We are joined now by Julie Ricard, a PhD candidate in Public Administration and
00:06Government at the Getulio Vargas Foundation of the Sao Paulo School of
00:10Business Administration and researcher as well at Desinfopop. Her research
00:16focuses on information disorder and public policy with an emphasis on the
00:21manosphere, digital violence against women and health as well and environment
00:26related disinformation. So welcome Julie to From the South. Thank you very much for your time.
00:34Thank you. Good afternoon and thank you for having me. First, how would you describe the political
00:40landscape in Brazil ahead of elections regarding threats to democracy, political violence and
00:47also the rise of fascism?
00:52We are in a very unique election, not only because it's a very tight race. It's one of the
00:58tightest race we've seen in the past decades. We're talking about a gap of 2.2 million votes from the
01:05first round. But we're also seeing an incredible mobilization from voters, from artists, from civil
01:15society overall, because people understand that what is at stake is really the health of our democracy.
01:23From the first round, what we've observed is already that the far right in Brazil has consolidated an
01:29unprecedented amount of power. So over 120 seats in Congress, over 28 seats in the Senate. So we are
01:39looking at a scenario where the balance of power is at risk. And that's a very concrete and material worry,
01:49right? That is mobilizing not necessarily people that have always voted for President Lula, but also
01:56people that worry that we will be able to maintain a state of democracy. So besides this balance of power,
02:05which is at risk currently, we are also very worried about what the candidate from the
02:11Bolsonarista camp, Flávio Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro's son represents, not only in terms of who he is and what
02:19he's done, and the numerous corruption accusations that he hasn't been able to improve to this day, but also of
02:27some of the declarations and some of the imaginary that he mobilizes, right? So we're talking about a candidate
02:34that has a very tough line in terms of combating violence, though, has not had a problem in saying
02:40that he wants to lower the majority, the majority for penal accusations to 14 years old, which is very
02:48young. But also all these symbolic and all the symbolism that he's mobilizing, for example, having a young
02:59kid in a pro-Claven Bolsonaro protest holding a gun upright, right? These are symbols that we know
03:07represent an attack to what we've built so far since the fall of the dictatorship in Brazil, which is a
03:14democracy that has lived in a pluralistic society that has allowed people to actually evolve and
03:24embrace their diversity. So yes, we're worried. There has been a lot of attacks over the past weeks, not only
03:32from
03:32and to politicians, but also to anyone in civil society that is involved in politics.
03:40Colleagues of mine that have been attacked, that has had to report attacks to the police, of course, elected politicians,
03:48for
03:49instance, very young Ana Elisa, who's been elected as the youngest congresswoman in Brazil and has
03:56suffered horrible misogynistic and racist attacks. So people are standing up and we know that it's
04:02important to do so, but there's a lot at stake in this election. And also, how has this information
04:08played out on social media in the midst of this election process?
04:14We've had since 2018 important legislation that has passed in Brazil that has reinforced our
04:21institutional ability to fight this information. But that's far from being enough. We also are leaving
04:30the election that has had the most elevated number of reports in terms of false information circulating,
04:37in terms of using new technologies, search as artificial intelligence, deepfakes, to also promote more compelling
04:46stories and videos. So just to give a few examples, last week, there were massive protests in defense of democracy
04:54and in favor of President Lula here at Paulista, where we're speaking from. And right after the protest, there were
05:02a lot of
05:03false videos misplaced images that were circulated and associated with the protests that were proven
05:12false or out of context and that were requested to be taken down, right? So this is, of course, something
05:19that has happened in past elections, but we've seen it with a lot of strength and we've never had an
05:25election
05:25in the context of such advanced technological tools. And this is most likely the scenario that we're going to
05:30live from now on, right? Every election in any country will be in a context of most advanced tools that
05:39are able to better impersonate reality, impersonate voices, faces, etc. So, of course, there's also a lot of
05:50civil society trying to mitigate those harms. We've seen that it's been hard on social media. There's been
06:00inclusive from the Supreme Electoral Court in Brazil, requests for Meta to explain what appears to be
06:08different treatments given to accounts from Flávio Bolsonaro and President Lula. And recently, a few days
06:16ago, there were messages, exchanges between Meta employees that were released, showing that they knew
06:22that there were restrictions put on Lula's account versus Flávio Bolsonaro's account that was being
06:29algorithmically promoted. There is even a protest today at Meta's headquarters in Brazil, because it
06:37feels like an interference, right? Of course, Meta says it's not the case, that it's been a technical
06:43error, etc. But it's been felt empirically by people that are active on social media. And then there has
06:50been a lot of mobilization on social media on the weeks since the first round, right? Because again,
07:00we know what's at stake. Also, Alfredo Gaspar, running mate of Flávio Bolsonaro, has been accused of
07:06raping a minor. What does this case tell us about what is the stake in Brazil for women?
07:15It's unfortunately very illustrative. Flávio Bolsonaro said from the beginning of his
07:20case, he really wanted to have a woman as a vice president. And that's a big question of why he
07:26didn't go through with that. And instead of choosing a woman, he chose someone that has been accused
07:32of sexual assault on a minor. Unfortunately, what we've seen is that the far right and misogynistic
07:41ideologies, including what we find in masculinist groups on social media, have a lot of overlap.
07:49So there is a tendency of incorporating certain aspects of the misogynistic repertoire. For example,
08:00language, right? Alpha, beta males, and this hierarchy that is created between men and women,
08:06that is being used for political mobilization. Because what we're seeing there is that there is
08:13a construction and an ideological construction in those groups that is repercuting outside of them.
08:19So what we're facing here is not only a vice president that has these types of accusations,
08:25but is also a former president, right? That is the father of the current, the current candidate,
08:31that has a lot of history in terms of attacking journalists, in terms of saying that a certain
08:39congresswoman didn't deserve to be raped because she was not pretty enough. And that's in terms of
08:46saying about Venezuelan teenagers that he felt that there was something like going on between them
08:56after talking with them. So we're talking about a family that has a history of considering women
09:03as inferior to men and as very much associated with their sexual identity. So definitely what is at risk
09:13here is a regression in terms of women's rights. And again, this is also why people are so mobilized.
09:22Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Julie, very much for your analysis and also helping us understand
09:26what Brazil, how Brazil is arriving to this runoff election. Thank you.
