The and the , social networks of , have pages with few followers, without identifiable responsible people, with a million-dollar resource to attack the senator (-RJ), pre-candidate for the Presidency, and the governor of , (Republicans), who is seeking re-election.
The practice was and confirmed by Sheet. Globo identified seven profiles with no identifiable representatives who promoted advertisements against politicians on the platform and who made advertisements in favor of , pre-candidate for the Government of São Paulo.
Despite the low number of followers, which do not exceed 400 members on each profile, the pages invested high amounts in publications associating, for example, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro with organized crime. The total amount spent by pages in the last 90 days is R$1,299,214, according to data from Meta.
The pages also have similar strategies, which may suggest that they are part of a coordinated action. They use generic phrases in posts that accompany videos against the candidates, which could be used to circumvent the platforms’ control mechanisms on political topics.
Another similarity is the date of registration of advertisers’ information in Meta, on the 22nd or 23rd of April or the 3rd and 8th of June. The strategy is also similar in terms of the number of ads, with many of them having a lower budget, spreading out the posts. With the exception of one page, with a number associated with DDD da (83), all have DDD 41, do .
The pages do not identify those responsible, with some of them linked to websites with no real content, written in Spanish and created on similar dates. Profiles on networks are offline.
The pages are Radar do Planalto, Dossier Brasil 24H, O Contra-Fluxo, Panorama Brasil, Olho no Erro, Contra a Tide and Lente Escura.
A post from Radar do Planalto, for example, promoted a video with the title “Flávio Bolsonaro likes to have murderers around him”. The video is a compilation of excerpts in which journalists provide news related to the relationship between the senator and the former military police officer.
The ad spent around R$3,000 and had impressions (the number of times an ad appeared on a screen, which could include multiple views by the same people) in the range of 500,000 or 600,000.
Others, from Contra a Maré, have posts against Tarcísio and in favor of Haddad. One of them has a video with the call “Meet the traitor of Freitas”, in reference to Tarcísio, while another points out that Haddad wants to eliminate taxes on medicines. Each one spent around R$300 and printed in the range of 30 thousand.
According to Amanda Cunha, a specialist in electoral law and one of the authors of the book “Direito Eleitoral Sancionador” (ed. Lumen Juris), only political parties, coalitions, federations, pre-candidates and candidates can promote political-electoral content, which needs to be identified as such.
Content promoted by authorized actors cannot be negative to other candidates, expenses must be transparent and there cannot be requests for votes in the pre-campaign.
“Profiles adopt a strategy of anonymity to escape supervision, this has become increasingly common. It is a strategy that attempts to circumvent electoral rules to indirectly carry out an electoral campaign”, says Cunha.
For the expert, the action could interfere with the equality between candidates in the electoral dispute, which tries to protect it with prohibitions. Unidentifiable profiles, he says, can also harm the quality of information that reaches voters and, consequently, the electoral scenario.
When asked about the ads and what it has done to comply with electoral legislation, Meta limited itself to sending texts with generic information about ads linked to politics and the company’s text about .
The report asked Haddad’s advisor if he would like to comment (due to the mentions in the ads in favor of the pre-candidate), but received no response.
