Jose Mari Lanuza, Jonathan Corpus Ong, Rafael Grohmann, Raquel Recuero, Marcelo Alves and Camilla Tavares
Introduction
Brazil and the Philippines, two countries with different flavors of populist governance that have relied on disinformation for much of their administrations, held general elections in 2022 with very different outcomes. In Brazil the populist reelectionist Jair Bolsonaro lost a close runoff to Lula da Silva and the Left, but his conservative-party coalition held on to the majority of seats in both houses of Congress. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, an alliance between the outgoing populist president Rodrigo Duterte and former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos—son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos—resulted in an overwhelming win for the administration, with Marcos taking the presidency and Duterte’s daughter and former Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte winning the vice presidency. These electoral outcomes and the recent sociopolitical contexts that shaped them provide fertile ground for South-to-South learning on influence operations and its role in politics.
Overview
While both countries have democratic republics—three branches of government, elections, vibrant social movements—their experiences with populist presidencies have created, if not exacerbated, democratic deficits.
The nature of these populist presidents does not exactly align: Brazil’s Bolsonaro espoused more rightwing politics overall, cutting across political, economic, social, cultural, and religious planes; the Philippines’ Duterte, on the other hand, invoked conservative values with certain political, social, and cultural issues yet embraced more neoliberal economic policies and trade relationships with other states, alongside greater state spending for tokenistic welfare policies.
Politically, both regimes deepened socio-political cleavages along democratic/antidemocratic lines. In both the Philippines and Brazil, the last six years were characterized by populist disinformation on the one hand, and civil society resistance on the other. There were differences, however, with the 2022 election results. Whereas in the Philippines a resounding victory served to affirm authoritarian public sentiments, in Brazil the broad Left candidate narrowly won the election. Due to this outcome, a wide section of the Brazilian population felt unrepresented, resulting in Bolsonaro supporters storming the capitol and calling for a military takeover last January 09, 2023, reminiscent of the January 06, 2021, attack by Trump protesters on the U.S. Capitol. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, there were similar fears of post-election violence on both sides, with pro-Marcos supporters warning against opposition mobilizations to contest electoral results and pro-opposition supporters fearing political persecution and harassment. In Brazil and the Philippines, the overwhelming defeat of liberal and progressive parties led to a mix of disillusionment, low morale, and determination to maintain vigilance against authoritarian policies. These deepening divides bring to the fore what appears to be the most visible genre of disinformation—election-related disinformation that undermines election results. In the Philippines election-related disinformation has been tracked by TotooBa.info, a fact-checking repository developed by InterNews. Meanwhile in Brazil the example for this is Aos Fatos, a fact checking agency which follows the code of conduct of the International Fact-Checking Network, from the USA.
Changes in the media landscape
The political landscape in Brazil and the Philippines have also affected the media landscape. Shifts at the media-system level speak to the growing polarization evident in both countries In the Philippines, the largest television network was shut down under the Duterte government. Subsequently, new pro-government networks have been established that broadcast disinformation and mainstream smear attacks on government critics and opposition politicians. As a result, legacy media networks have been constrained in performing their traditional watchdog duties.
In Brazil, some legacy media outlets have shifted their issue positions and coverage strategies, becoming “institutionalized right-wing vehicles” (e.g., Jovem Pan). Similar to propaganda models of media systems, these outlets now eschew traditional journalistic ethics and standards in favor of echoing the government’s pronouncements and positions. However, mainly the largest legacy media outlets, such as Globo (television) and Folha de S. Paulo (newspaper), adopted a dubious discourse in relation to the Bolsonaro government. On the one hand, legacy media coverage tended to support Bolsonaro’s economic measures. On the other, media criticized conspiracy, anti-democracy and anti-science discourse. This was stronger during the pandemic period. The legacy media also criticized the conservatism on topics such as abortion and gender. The leftist media—especially The Intercept Brasil and Agencia Publica—were notable for in-depth news stories broadly criticizing Bolsonaro and Bolsonarism.
In terms of social media influence operations, traditional social media outlets like Facebook and YouTube remain the main avenues for hyperpartisan content in the Philippines. TikTok has also emerged as a politicized platform since the start of the pandemic with its unique algorithm and multilayered media content. Unlike in the Philippines, Instagram and WhatsApp are the dominant social media platforms for hyperpartisan content in Brazil. But just as it did in the Phillippines, TikTok has emerged in Brazil as a new politicized platform, alongside Kwai, another Chinese shortform video-centered platform similar to TikTok.
These social media platforms are increasingly capitalized on by influencers who either simply ride on popular issues with monetized content or actually use their popularity online to jumpstart their political careers. In the Philippines, while influencers come from various backgrounds and create different kinds of content, they usually remain influencers only. Just a handful of influencers have come to occupy government positions there, mostly through presidential appointments. Their electoral bids usually end in failure, underscoring how Duterte supporters in 2016 and 2019 only voted for Duterte and his closely-affiliated cronies, rather than for everyone who allied with him. But in Brazil, Nikolas Ferreira, the federal deputy candidate with the highest votes in 2022, was first a political influencer on Instagram known for his ultraconservative views on religion and governance.
Social media influencers played a part in disseminating either pro-administration or critical media content in both countries during 2022 elections. In the Philippines we observed different kinds of influencers, including those who are academically credentialed, those whose content leans towards delegitimizing scientific and historical accounts, and those who come from other countries and produce reaction content that sows doubt or rides on popular issues and topics without adhering to journalistic standards. These same kinds of influencers have been observed in Brazil in recent years, except those who are academically credentialed. During the elections, the main influencers were right-wing politicians, with an emphasis on Jair Bolsonaro’s family and influencer Nikolas Ferreira. Also in the foreground was the video-streaming platform attributed to the far-right Brasil Paralelo, which produces and spreads conspiracy theories with the promise of a “reinterpretation” of Brazil from the extreme right. In 2021, Forbes described Brasil Paralelo as the second largest “pro-free society” organization in the world.
Disinformation innovations and narratives
In both countries, while there was talk about automated influence operations, there were no conclusive studies or evidence uncovered. But foreign operations paint a different picture. In the Philippines, Facebook disclosed that coordinated inauthentic behavior came from Vietnam, Thailand, and the United States prior to the election season. In Brazil, while there were no public revelations by Facebook, there is a known association between Steve Bannon, a far-right media executive and political strategist in the United States, and one of former president Bolsonaro’s sons.
Common narratives surrounding disinformation and influence operations also abound, including historical distortion, electoral fraud, and misogynistic, transphobic, and homophobic messages. These commonalities suggest that the populist political contexts share similar anti-democratic discursive playbooks. One prominent playbook tactic seems to focus on a fear of critical politics, all lumped together and demonized as the Left. However, this shared fear of Left politics occurs at different levels and with different textures.
In the Philippines, the Left has been used as a bogeyman for any critical voice and has been discursively mobilized by the State to delegitimize any political opposition and inquiry at all levels. However, this aversion to Left politics does not get associated with anti-China politics despite the countries’ history of maritime disputes, due to the influx of Chinese finance capital for the Philippine government’s massive infrastructure projects. The aversion to and association of Left politics to China is more palpable in Brazil, where progressive politics are portrayed by the Bolsonaro government and disinformation actors as a trojan horse for communist aspirations. The strongest example of Anti-China racism in Brazil occurred before the elections, in 2020, in relation to the anti-vaccine movements. The Chinese vaccine Sinovac was bought and tested locally by a Bolsonaro opponent, the governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria. Bolsonaro and supporters started to call the vaccine (which is ‘vacina’ in Portuguese) ‘vaChina,’ in a racist tone, as if the “Chinese vaccine” would cause more diseases in vaccinated people, which as a result discouraged vaccination.
For both countries, there are also religious influencers who mobilize manichean discourses, although they express them in different ways. In Brazil, influence operations paint Bolsonaro as guided by God while painting Leftists as connected to the Devil and Satanism. While these narratives are also present in online comment sections and forums in the Philippines, they are not systemically mobilized by influence operators. Former President Duterte has a close relationship with Apollo Quiboloy, a Filipino pastor who founded the religion Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Quiboloy, who has referred to himself as the “Appointed Son of God,” has served to morally justify and legitimize the previous Duterte regime along religious lines. In return, the pastor has received political favors such as the approval for a conservative and occasionally disinformative national media franchise. But outside of Quiboloy and Catholic Church pronouncements on voting for ethical leaders, religious discourses of “evil” are not as prominent in the Philippines as they are in Brazil.
Civil society responses
The Philippines and Brazil share a preoccupation with media literacy and fact-checking initiatives that focus on monitoring and correcting social media content and individual expression. In Brazil, the Superior Electoral Court maintains an Observatory of Transparency in Elections, with the presence of research experts. During the elections, the Court removed disinformative content and demonetized pro-Bolsonaro videos. The Court also used a media campaign and WhatsApp and Telegram channels to alert the population to the dangers of disinformation. And in 2022, several media outlets were created to produce content about disinformation, such as the outlet Desinformante, a creative venue connected to fact-checking agencies. But during and after the elections, the greatest pressure from civil society was around the need for platform regulation. One of the first measures taken by the Lula government in 2023 was the creation of a secretariat on digital policies, tasked with combatting disinformation.
In the Philippines a vibrant fact-checking movement has led to a diverse roster of multisectoral initiatives and public pressure. While this has brought increased attention to content verification and media literacy resources inside and outside of schools, the Philippine government has capitalized on the support for fact checking by proposing laws that paint politicians as disinformation victims and pose potential threats to civilian freedoms. Accountability initiatives for platforms and actors in the disinformation-for-hire industry are still lacking, and fact check-centric approaches and media literacy models still dominate the overall conversation.
Civil society responses also include united and concerted efforts by various multisectoral groups in Brazil to prevent integrity risks, while more individualistic and scattered brigading and cancelling efforts are observed in the Philippines. Both countries, however, fall short in pushing for systemic-level interventions that look at the political economy of influence operations—with the notable exception being DigiLabour’s partnership with UMass Amherst.
Platform responses
The most popular social media platforms in both countries have taken the initiative on platform takedowns, content tagging, fact-checking campaigns, information drives, and content moderation. In Brazil, a signed agreement between major platforms and the Supreme Court commits to thwarting disinformation, political violence, and hate speech; such pronouncements are absent in the Philippines. And while Brazil has prohibited political ads on TikTok, the Philippines has only advocated for labeling which political ads are paid and who has paid for them.
Noticeably absent in both countries is a commitment from platforms to increase transparency. Access to their data, their decision-making processes, and their implementation is vital to addressing platform issues but remains elusive.
Conclusion
While the 2022 electoral outcomes for Brazil and the Philippines highlight growing divides in these countries, the presence of growing democratic networks with their fruitful experiences in disinformation and influence operations offers much to be optimistic about. In the Philippines, the 2022 turnout of 84.1% was the highest ever logged by the Commission on Elections (see Table 1). While polarized, increased political efficacy indicates heightened political participation and offers pathways to more inclusive and deliberative practices for elections and policies. This is fertile ground for academics and activists, who continue to engage in sociopolitical soul-searching and push for democratic policies and projects amidst an environment more hostile to progressive politics.
| Table 1. Voter turnout in the Philippines, 2010-2022. | |||||
| YEAR | 2010 | 2013 | 2016 | 2019 | 2022 |
| TURNOUT | 75.77% | 74.34% | 81.95% | 75.9% | 84.1% |
Source: COMELEC (https://comelec.gov.ph/?r=home)
In Brazil, voter turnouts have hovered around the same range since 2010 for presidential elections with a slight decline for parliamentary elections (see Table 2). However, civil society has effectively organized advocacy actions connecting multisectoral groups to prevent democratic integrity risks, and launched influential digital literacy projects such as Vaza Falsiane. This vibrant involvement from below is something to be celebrated and built upon. By investigating the limits of digital literacy projects in a society like Brazil, academics and activists can identify other alternative and media projects that can be used to combat disinformation.
| Table 2. Voter turnout in Brazil, 2010-2022. | ||||
| YEAR | 2010 | 2014 | 2018 | 2022 |
| TURNOUT (Pr) | 78.5% | 78.9% | 79.67% | 79.05% |
| TURNOUT (Pa) | 81.8% | 80.6% | 79.8% | 79.2% |
Source: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (https://www.idea.int/data-tools/country-view/68/40)
We do not want to gloss over the challenges that we face. The rampant disinformation and authoritarian policies from the previous regimes and the subsequent polarization in both countries create real worries about the formalization and institutionalization of ‘parallel public spheres,’ as seen in the changes in both countries’ media landscapes as well as the antidemocratic disinformation narratives deployed in both countries. Disinformation is not simply a conversation about truths and information quality, but about institutions, industries, and systems. How can we successfully shift our gaze from individualist views of information consumption to systemic analysis on the political economy of influence operations? How can we synthesize international advocacies for platform regulation and information ecosystem sanitation with community engagement and local community empowerment? What does a bottom-up, whole-of-society approach look like, and how can we enjoin more citizens to participate, if not lead, these initiatives? These are difficult but necessary questions that we must grapple with. By exploiting these generative tensions and learning from the experiences of fellow countries in the Global South, we can begin to devise an approach that is appropriate for our contexts and cognizant of our particular experiences and needs.
Acknowledgments
This South-to-South disinformation learning space initiative hosted by DigiLabour is supported by Luminate, Reset and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Philippine elections study is supported by Internews, Luminate, and Reset, and is available at Harvard Kennedy School’s Media Manipulation Casebook website (https://mediamanipulation.org/research/parallel-public-spheres-influence-operations-2022-philippine-elections).
Image credit: Shutterstock/ Nina Images