Actions of “computational propaganda” and “industrialized disinformation” on political issues affected 81 countries – including Brazil – in 2020, according to research released in January this year by the University of Oxford. With fake news and messages out of context, the initiatives were driven by government agencies and institutional or private actors (such as companies, influencers and parties) in order to manipulate public opinion and increase the polarization of society in these places.

The services were called “industrialized disinformation“, as they are increasingly professional. Companies, parties and other actors in society started to use fake accounts and robots, organized in real “cyber troops”, to propagate false information.

Disinformation in Brazil

In the ranking made by the survey, Brazil is among the countries with medium capacity to create industrialized information and has groups ready to attack government opponents. “The most used strategies in Brazil were pro-government messages, attacks on the opposition and polarization” says researcher Antonella Perini, a member of the Computational Advertising Research Project at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII).

According to her, the analyzes point to an organized structure in the federal government, which emerged during the 2018 election campaign. The spike in false information was observed after Luiz Henrique Mandetta left the post of Minister of Health in 2020. Antonella says that main attacks are directed at “journalists and media critical to the government, politicians and public officials” .

Overall ranking

At the top of the ranking , the survey indicates 17 countries, with a high capacity to misinform. The actions involve full-time employees and, of course, a lot of money. United States, China, United Kingdom, Russia, Venezuela and Iran are some of the nations in the first place.

Along with Brazil , there are 36 other countries (such as Australia, Cuba, Poland, Mexico, Turkey and others) that have an average capacity to produce industrialized information. Although they are not at the top of the list, these locations also employ full-time staff and can promote actions outside their territories.

The third and last group on the list is composed of countries with low computational advertising capacity. Actions are generally observed during elections, but are halted until the next election cycle. Argentina, Colombia, South Africa and Spain are some of the 27 countries in this category.

Via:  Estadão