Compared to other countries, Brazil presents greater perception that information disseminated about and politics is false, according to a study that analyzed 19 countries in the region.
The scenario indicates a suspicious population of the information it consumes, which can be conducive to intensifying polarization in a society in which it has been increasingly difficult to get out of the bubble, researchers evaluate.
The conclusion starts from data raised by the research “Vectors and Implications of the Informational Disorder of Latin America”, released by InternetLab and the Social Knowledge Network on Monday (22).
The survey analyzed 19 countries in the region divided into five groupings: Mexico, Central America, Andes/Amazon, Brazil and Southern Cone.
From July 5 to 14, 2024, researchers collected via online questionnaire the perception of over 16 years with access to and active use of social networks on disinformation -related topics.
The study is representative of the five regions for the population with internet access. The margin of error is 3 percentage points over the total sample, 6065 interviews, with a confidence interval of 95%.
There was also qualitative phase, with six discussion groups, with 5 or 6 people, and 13 individual interviews in depth.
According to the survey, 37% of Brazilian respondents think that all or almost everything about elections is false news or misinformation, against 30% recorded for all of Latin America.
Research does not limit the concept of “news” to information produced by the professional press. As a result, the term may refer to any type of information available on the media (TV, radio, social networks, messaging applications or websites) used by respondents to find out.
The theme “Election” is what most generates distrust in people among the subjects addressed by the survey, which also evaluated the perception of respondents in niches such as celebrity life, safety and public health.
When it comes to political in general, 27% of Brazilians have the perception that everything is false. The value for all countries is 21%.
The interviewees have answered the question of “today, how much false news or misinformation you believe they circulate on the subjects below.”
According to Heloisa Massaro, director of research at Internetlab and one of the study’s authors, distrust is greater among Brazilians probably because the country is involved in the discussion about since just before other regions of Latin America.
The value is high, however, also in the whole of the countries studied. Analysis of the entire region points out that 51% of respondents think that much of what circulates about elections is not reliable. Only 11% say nothing or almost nothing is misinformation or false. 8% could not answer.
When it comes to political, 65% think a lot of information is false and 9%, nothing or almost nothing.
The survey pointed out that, immersed in this scenario of distrust, people tend to check the information they receive.
On the one hand, verification is positive in indicating that users are aware that not everything circulating in networks is true. On the other hand, it can point to worrying horizon, as the way the check is done does not always result in correct calculation when mixing with the user bias.
According to Massaro, the form of verification varies, with 15% of Brazilians saying that they themselves are the most reliable people to talk about politics. It also features confidence in family and friends.
Compared to the other four groupings and the result of all Latin America, Brazil stands out for giving these people more credibility as the most reliable sources.
Thus, the process of can be confirmed their own perceptions, despite the factuality of the data.
“If, on the one hand, this ethics have been created to check the information, the form of this verification has worried us a lot. It can be, in some cases, to understand how friends position themselves in relation to the subject, making family members and the user himself to reference people,” says Marisa Villi, executive director of the Social Knowledge Network.
Behavior reinforces communication bubbles and the trend among users to create their own informational ecosystems, which can accentuate polarization processes, says Villi.
“The effect of this for an election period, for example, is that you can hardly put different bubbles to talk between them.”
In this scenario of high distrust, 4 out of 10 people in Latin America defend some form of platform regulation.
Those who say left are those who most totally defend some kind of regulation, according to the study. The right -wing ones are the ones who most speak at risk for freedom of expression with the possibility of blocking content.
Center individuals are the most thoughtful “in relation to the different types of platform regulation, and more than half of them defend somehow regulation by law,” the survey points out.
