Researchers from the Communication Technologies and Politics (TCP) group at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj) are studying how people organize to make election content go viral on WhatsApp. The investigative journalism agency Pública published some of the results:
“The researchers monitored 28 groups that described themselves as ‘conservative’ or ‘pro-military’, and 24 groups supporting PSL and Bolsonaro. They also joined 18 groups supporting PT or Haddad, 4 supporting PSDB or Geraldo Alckmin, 4 supporting Marina Silva, 2 supporting Ciro Gomes, and 1 supporting Henrique Meirelles. They also followed 9 groups for general or cross-party political discussion. The research group belongs to the National Institute of Science and Technology in Digital Democracy (INCT.DD) network.
For coordinator Alessandra Aldé, there is order in the online chaos. ‘False news follows specific paths. These flows are not random, and there is a specific technique to make false information go viral. And that is very important.’ The study found that at least one in every 30 messages was sent from abroad.
‘A news item enters a group and reaches just over 250 people there. Some of those people voluntarily take it and share it in other groups. They are not just victims who shared something once and do not share it again. They share it systematically,’ explains João Guilherme, who coordinates the group’s data analysis unit.”
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