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2019 Conference Proceedings Table of Contents Latifa Abdin Bots and Fake News: The Role of WhatsApp in the 2018 Brazilian Presidential Election 1-15 McMaster University Colin Jon Mark Crawford Fictitious Capital: Netflix and the New Narratives of Media Value in Platform Capitalism 15-24 Concordia University Jeff Donison Horror Movies on Wax: Examining Violence in ‘90’s Horrorcore Rap 25-33 York University Manon Hakem-Lemaire The Poetics of Contrast: Alfonso Cuarón’s Negotiation of Mexican Progress in Y tu mamá también (2001) and Roma (2018) 34-40 University of Guelph Casey Robertson Music, Noise, and Discourse: Pathways for Queer Agency in the Modern Sonic Landscape 41-47 York University Anushray Singh South Asia and the West: Identity, Multidimensionality and the Public Gaze 48-55 University of Windsor Davis Vallesi Framing the Issue: A Critical Examination of Traditional Journalism 56-62 York University Intersections | Cross-sections Graduate Conference 2019: Versus Bots and Fake News: The Role of WhatsApp in the 2018 Brazilian Presidential Election Latifa Abdin Masters of Globalization McMaster University Hamilton, ON Canada. Abstract This paper will seek to explore the use of computational propaganda, as defined by Woolley and Howard (2018), specifically on the chat app WhatsApp, in the 2018 Brazilian presidential election. It will argue that the illegal use of computational propaganda paved the way for the victory of the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro. First, this paper will outline Brazil’s recent political history and acknowledge the role that history played in the outcome of this presidential election. Then, this paper will look at the transformation in Brazil’s media landscape – specifically at how WhatsApp has taken over the role the traditional news media has played in the country. Finally, using news reports from both Western and Brazilian news media, in addition to preliminary research that has been conducted by academics in Brazil, this paper will outline how paid-for “cyber-troops” were able to use the public group feature on WhatsApp to disseminate fake news, and the variables that allowed this to be a successful misinformation campaign. The use of chat apps, WhatsApp especially, to disseminate fake news, particularly during elections, has been a growing trend in Global South countries where use of the app has grown rapidly. This paper will conclude by analysing articles, academic and journalistic, to suggest ways in which this problem can be combated to prevent future manipulation of public opinion by political actors using WhatsApp during elections. Keywords: Brazil elections 2018, WhatsApp, fake news, computational propaganda Introduction On Sunday October 2018, social media was flooded with news sites publishing articles declaring the results of the 2018 Brazilian presidential election. The far-right wing candidate, 63 year-old Jair Bolsonaro, claimed 55.1% of the vote. (Phillips & Phillips, 2018b) A year ago, many political analysts assumed that he did not stand a chance winning the presidency. Since his victory, the world’s concern has turned to how he will govern. For the first time in its modern democratic history, Brazil elected a president who supports extreme far right-politics. (Staff, 2018) For a large part of Brazil’s history, the military played a central role in the running of the state. In 1964, a military coup d’état forced the ruling reformist party out. The authoritarian military regime that took over was an oppressive one, focused solely on neo-liberal projects meant to modernize the state. The regime faced intense 1 Intersections | Cross-sections Graduate Conference 2019: Versus resistance from leftist political groups, artist, intellectuals, and press outlets. Ultimately, the regime fell back and there was a transition to democracy in 1984. Though Brazil is now the world’s fourth largest democracy, its recent political history has been marred by scandals and corruption by the leftist parties that have run the country. Political analysts and historians have attributed current nostalgia for the days of the regime, to the scandals that have come to light in recent years. (Napolitano, 2018) This nostalgia is what many believe lead to the shocking results of this 2018 election – a country that only elected centrist or leftist parties since transitioning to democracy, elected a “a far-right, pro-gun, pro-torture populist,” who publicly reminisced about the days of the military regime. (Phillips & Phillips, 2018b) Though the results were shocking to many, they show a continuation in a global trend that started with the 2016 American presidential election. Populist proto-fascist candidates have been winning elections globally, notably in Europe, and their right-wing rhetoric has slowly become normalized. There is a strong argument to be made that this normalization is happening, in large part, through social media. The most notable aspect of various elections that took place over the past two years, again, beginning with the 2016 American presidential election, is the central and vital role social media has increasingly played in each one. The 2016 American presidential election brought this role to the spotlight – it revealed that international interference in elections was happening on a micro-targeted level on social media platforms. Russia, namely, tried to sway the American election in favour of Donald Trump. A report recently published by the Computational Propaganda Project at the University of Oxford (Howard et al., 2018) revealed that Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election was present online as far back as 2013, across several social media platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. The Russian government’s Internet Research Agency had utilized “automated or fake accounts” to spread false content online. According to the report, over 30 million users between 2015 and 2017 shared the Russian content which often “[encouraged] extreme right-wing voters to be more confrontational and [spread] sensationalist, conspiratorial, and other forms of junk political news and misinformation to voters across the political spectrum.” (Howard, et.al 2018) As the world is well-aware, this misinformation campaign succeeded, and pushed online right-wing content into the mainstream. This revelation sparked outraged calls for social media companies to be held accountable for allowing such interference on their platforms. The world was reminded that only six years earlier, social media served as the liberating force for democratic movements such as the Arab Spring; as a result, social media had been hailed as the new democratizing force that would allow social movements to mobilize. The potential for social media to be used as a mobilizing tool for non-state actors such as progressive social movements and political dissidents was met with optimism. These platforms, specifically Twitter and Facebook, created a “new public sphere” that allowed grassroots participation for political dissidents and a new platform for political education, particularly among youth. Freedom of expression and speech was possible in authoritarian contexts, if users were careful to protect their identities online (Fominaya, 2014, pp. 162–163); however, the optimism for the democratizing 2 Intersections | Cross-sections Graduate Conference 2019: Versus potential of social media was quickly replaced by cynicism, as states and political actors adapted to this new technology. Initially, governments blocked access to social media during times of civil unrest or protest. This has happened in countries like Egypt1, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, to name a few examples (Arthur, 2011; Fominaya, 2014, p. 164; Frenkel, 2018; Kalvapalle, 2017; Roberts, 2016); however political actors have been increasingly using the same platforms that help mobilize social movements, to subvert the movements and to subvert democratic processes. As Bradshaw and Howard (2018) write, “where government control over Internet content has traditionally relied on blunt instruments to block or filter the free flow of information, powerful political actors are now turning to [misinformation campaigns] to shape public discourse and nudge public opinion.” This has been happening almost exclusively in Global South (pp. 4, 8). While the 2016 American presidential election demonstrated how foreign governments use disinformation campaigns to do this, the 2018 Brazilian election demonstrated how political actors do this domestically. This was one aspect that the news media focused on when covering the Brazilian election. The other aspect the news media focused on during the 2018 Brazilian election was the social media platform where the disinformation campaign took place. Previously Facebook and Twitter had been the platforms of choice for disinformation campaigns as the 2016 American election demonstrated. The disinformation campaign that took place in Brazil during the election was on WhatsApp, a messaging app. (Isaac & Roose, 2018) This was not the first time that WhatsApp came under fire for having misinformation on its app. In January 2017 propaganda spread on the app that incited racial violence in India (Rebelo, 2018). There were also alarms raised over its misuse during other elections such as in Mexico (Owen, 2018). However, during the Brazilian election mainstream media focused so heavily on a misinformation campaign taking place on the app and many commentators blamed the app for Bolsonaro’s victory. These two aspects of the Brazilian
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