Case Study 2: Brazil's 2022 Election and the Bolsonaro Information Ecosystem

Overview

Brazil's 2022 presidential election — in which former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) defeated incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro by approximately 1.8 percentage points — offers one of the most consequential case studies of domestic election disinformation in the Global South. The election combined a highly developed WhatsApp-based disinformation ecosystem, sustained false claims about the integrity of Brazil's electronic voting system, deliberate exploitation of evangelical Christian and military networks, and — following Bolsonaro's defeat — the January 8, 2023, riots in which Bolsonaro supporters attacked the Presidential Palace, National Congress building, and Supreme Court. The parallels to the United States' 2020 election and January 6, 2021, events are striking and instructive.

This case study examines the Bolsonaro disinformation ecosystem, analyzes the specific false claims about Brazil's electoral system, documents the January 8 events, and draws lessons for democratic resilience globally.

Brazil's Information Ecosystem and WhatsApp Dominance

The WhatsApp Information Environment

Understanding Brazilian election disinformation requires understanding Brazil's unique information environment. Brazil has approximately 130 million WhatsApp users — making it one of the world's largest WhatsApp markets relative to population. WhatsApp is not merely a messaging application in Brazil; for tens of millions of Brazilians it is the primary news and information source, the community organization tool, and the political communication channel.

Several features of Brazilian WhatsApp use create specific vulnerabilities to disinformation: - WhatsApp group culture: Brazilians participate in extensive overlapping WhatsApp group networks — family groups, neighborhood groups, church groups, professional groups — creating efficient distribution networks for shared content. - "Uncle groups": Research from the Instituto Democracia Digital documented the phenomenon of political disinformation entering families through what Brazilians call grupos de família (family groups) — the Brazilian equivalent of "fake news from your uncle at Thanksgiving," but operating at scale through a personal communication channel. - Free Basics and subsidized access: WhatsApp access is subsidized by Brazilian telecom carriers, making it effectively free to use even for users with limited data plans — increasing its centrality as an information source for working-class users.

The Bolsonaro WhatsApp Operation

During the 2018 campaign, Brazilian news outlet Agência Pública documented evidence of business owners — particularly textile manufacturers and agricultural interests — funding mass WhatsApp campaigns on Bolsonaro's behalf through companies providing bulk messaging services. These campaigns distributed disinformation about Workers' Party candidate Fernando Haddad through pre-existing WhatsApp group networks.

By 2022, the Bolsonaro information operation had become more sophisticated. Key elements included:

Automated message distribution: Services providing mass WhatsApp message distribution to pre-purchased lists of numbers, bypassing WhatsApp's forwarding limits by sending messages from multiple accounts simultaneously rather than forwarding from a single source.

Content production networks: Bolsonaro-aligned social media influencers, evangelical Christian media networks, and allied small media organizations producing a continuous stream of pro-Bolsonaro and anti-Lula content designed for WhatsApp sharing.

Military WhatsApp networks: The Brazilian military had extensive internal WhatsApp networks through which Bolsonaro-favorable content — including content questioning the integrity of the electoral system — circulated among active and retired military personnel.

Evangelical Christian media: Brazil's large and rapidly growing evangelical Christian community provided a receptive audience for Bolsonaro's messaging. Evangelical churches maintain extensive WhatsApp networks among congregants, and Bolsonaro's alignment with evangelical cultural positions (opposition to LGBTQ rights, anti-abortion stance, religious freedom framing) made church networks efficient distribution channels for political content.

The False Claims About Brazil's Electronic Voting System

Background: Brazil's Electronic Voting System

Brazil introduced electronic voting machines in 1996, gradually replacing paper ballots nationwide. By 2000, Brazil had fully transitioned to electronic voting — one of the world's first countries to do so at national scale. The system has operated for more than 25 years without credible documented evidence of systematic fraud. International observers, domestic election experts, and academic researchers who have studied the system consistently assess it as reliable and secure.

The Brazilian Superior Electoral Court (TSE) manages the voting system and has made the source code of voting software available for audit by political parties, federal agencies, and security researchers under confidentiality agreements. Multiple independent technical audits have found no evidence of fraud or systematic vulnerability.

Bolsonaro's Claims: Origins and Escalation

Bolsonaro began making claims about potential problems with Brazil's electronic voting system in 2019 — two years before the 2022 election — effectively planting the "stolen election" narrative before the vote occurred. The claims escalated significantly after polling showed Bolsonaro trailing Lula.

Key false claims included:

Hackability claims: Bolsonaro and allied figures claimed that Brazil's voting machines were susceptible to remote hacking. No credible evidence supported this claim; independent technical assessments confirmed that the machines are not connected to the internet during voting.

Audit impossibility claims: Claims that results could not be independently audited. In fact, the TSE makes audit mechanisms available to political parties and technical observers.

Suspicious first-round results: After the first round of the election (October 2, 2022), Bolsonaro allies claimed that the results showed suspicious patterns — specifically, that Bolsonaro's vote total was lower than pre-election polls had predicted. In fact, polling misses of this magnitude are within normal margins of error, and multiple alternative explanations (late decisions by undecided voters, differential enthusiasm for poll participation among different voter segments) were documented.

The "systems are down" false narrative: On election night, false claims circulated through WhatsApp claiming that the official electoral system was experiencing problems or irregularities — claims that were false but circulated widely in the critical hours when results were being announced.

Military Involvement in Election Doubting

Particularly significant was the involvement of elements of the Brazilian military in amplifying election integrity concerns. Bolsonaro had cultivated extensive relationships with the military, appointing numerous military figures to his government and explicitly positioning himself as the candidate of military and security interests.

A military technical committee established to review the electoral system's security produced a report that stopped well short of endorsing Bolsonaro's specific fraud claims but raised technical questions about the audit procedures — providing a veneer of institutional legitimacy to election skepticism. The report was widely cited in Bolsonaro's information ecosystem as military confirmation of election fraud concerns, despite not actually supporting that claim.

Brazilian military commanders ultimately did not support a coup, and the military stood down after the election despite intense pressure from Bolsonaro allies. This decision — which differentiated Brazil from countries where military intervention in failed elections has occurred — was one of the key factors that preserved Brazilian democracy through the post-election period.

The January 8, 2023, Riots

Events

On January 8, 2023 — the first Sunday of Lula's presidency, one week after his inauguration — tens of thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the buildings of Brazil's three branches of government: the Palácio do Planalto (Presidential Palace), the National Congress, and the Supreme Court (STF). The rioters ransacked and vandalized all three buildings, destroying artwork and furniture, breaking windows and doors, and leaving extensive physical damage estimated in the tens of millions of dollars.

The events occurred while Bolsonaro was in Florida (he had left Brazil before the January 1 inauguration). Brazilian Federal Police arrested over 1,500 people in immediate days following the riots; thousands more were subsequently identified and arrested. Brazilian courts moved rapidly to prosecute participants and — eventually — to consider charges against Bolsonaro himself.

The Information Ecosystem's Role

The January 8 events were directly enabled by months of coordinated disinformation claiming that the election had been stolen. Investigative reporting by multiple Brazilian news organizations documented the specific WhatsApp and Telegram channels through which the attack was coordinated, including specific calls to action targeting the government buildings. The logistical operation involved buses chartered to transport participants to Brasilia, organized largely through evangelical church networks and Bolsonaro-supporting political organizations.

Several specific false claims played identifiable roles in motivating participation: - Claims that the military was planning to intervene to overturn the election result and needed public support - Claims that Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes had "stolen" the election through manipulation of the TSE - Claims that a Lula government would immediately implement authoritarian measures against Bolsonaro supporters

Parallels to January 6, 2021

The structural parallels to the US January 6, 2021, events are striking and have been extensively analyzed by researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, and V-Dem Institute:

The most significant difference is the timing of disinformation: Bolsonaro spent three years building election integrity doubt before the 2022 election, compared to Trump's compressed 10-week post-election campaign. This longer timeline allowed Bolsonaro's claims to become more deeply embedded in his supporters' beliefs before the election, potentially making them more durable.

The Telegram Factor

While WhatsApp was the primary disinformation distribution channel in the pre-election period, Telegram played a significant role in January 8 coordination. Telegram's larger groups (up to 200,000 members), lower moderation, and use by Bolsonaro himself for political communication made it an important coordination hub. Bolsonaro maintained a Telegram channel with millions of followers where he amplified election doubt claims directly.

Platform Responses

WhatsApp's Response

WhatsApp (Meta) implemented several measures in the lead-up to the Brazilian election:

Forwarding limits: WhatsApp had already implemented global forwarding limits (maximum 5 times for regular messages; 1 time for "frequently forwarded" messages) that limited the most viral spread. Brazil had additional restrictions implemented following 2018.

Partnership with fact-checkers: WhatsApp partnered with Brazilian fact-checking organizations to create a tip line through which users could submit potentially false content for fact-checking, with results published in ways that could reach WhatsApp users.

Political advertising ban: WhatsApp prohibits paid political advertising and mass-message commercial services for political purposes (though enforcement is challenging given end-to-end encryption).

The fundamental limitation remained: WhatsApp cannot moderate content it cannot read. The most sophisticated disinformation distribution — using multiple accounts to bypass forwarding limits — was technically difficult to detect.

Telegram's Response

Telegram's response was significantly less robust than WhatsApp's. The platform did not implement specific election-period moderation measures, did not partner with fact-checkers, and generally maintained its low-moderation stance. Following the January 8 events, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Telegram to provide user data related to organizers of the riots, ultimately resulting in a temporary suspension of the platform in Brazil before it complied with the order.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram)

Meta implemented coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) enforcement, removing networks of accounts engaged in coordinated manipulation. Meta also partnered with Brazilian fact-checkers through its Third Party Fact Checking program. However, as with all platform interventions, these measures were most effective against coordinated inauthentic networks and had limited impact on organic disinformation spread by genuine users.

Brazilian Democratic Institutions' Response

The Supreme Court's Role

Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who served as head of the TSE during the 2022 election, became a central figure in both election administration and the response to disinformation. De Moraes issued orders against platforms failing to remove specific content; he ordered the blocking of Telegram and later Starlink service when they failed to comply with court orders. His aggressive use of judicial power to address election disinformation was effective in specific cases but also raised legitimate concerns about concentrations of power in a single official.

Accelerated Vote Counting and Communication

The TSE worked to provide rapid, transparent communication of vote counting results and security protocols. This proactive communication — including live-streamed verification processes and rapid result announcement — was designed to preempt false claims by establishing official information quickly.

International Observation

The 2022 election featured extensive international observation, including missions from the Organization of American States, the Carter Center, and European Union. These missions' public conclusions — confirming the election's integrity — provided additional credible independent voices supporting the official results.

Lessons for Democratic Resilience

Lesson 1: Long-Term Disinformation Investment Requires Long-Term Counter-Investment

Bolsonaro's three-year campaign of election doubt was far more deeply embedded in his supporters' beliefs by election day than Trump's ten-week post-election campaign was for American supporters. Democracies facing this kind of long-term disinformation investment need equally long-term investment in voter education, institutional credibility building, and electoral system explanation — not reactive campaigns launched after a losing candidate begins making fraud claims.

Lesson 2: Platform-Specific Vulnerabilities Require Platform-Specific Countermeasures

WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption creates a fundamentally different moderation challenge than open social media platforms. Measures effective on Facebook (content removal, labeling, coordinated inauthentic behavior enforcement) are unavailable on WhatsApp. Forwarding limits represent a partial, imperfect measure. Democracies relying on WhatsApp as a primary information channel need to invest specifically in WhatsApp-appropriate countermeasures: fact-checking integration, trusted messenger networks operating within group ecosystems, and legal requirements for campaign disclosure of mass-messaging services.

Lesson 3: Military Neutrality Is Critical and Must Be Cultivated

A decisive difference between Brazil's experience and potential authoritarian outcomes was the military's decision not to intervene. This neutrality was not automatic — Bolsonaro spent years cultivating military loyalty and legitimacy. The military's ultimate decision to stand aside reflected institutional pride in the military's democratic role, international pressure, and the advice of military lawyers about the legal consequences of intervention. Democracies should actively cultivate military institutional commitment to democratic norms rather than assuming it.

Lesson 4: Judicial Independence Is Both Essential and Vulnerable

The STF's aggressive response to election disinformation — ordering platform compliance, temporarily blocking platforms, and moving rapidly against January 8 organizers — was effective in specific cases. However, the concentration of these powers in individual justices raises governance concerns. Brazil's experience suggests that judicial capacity to respond to election disinformation needs to be institutionalized with appropriate checks rather than depending on individual judicial initiative.

Lesson 5: January 6 and January 8 as a Global Template

The "stolen election" narrative template has proven globally transferable. Political actors who lose elections have a demonstrated model — developed in the US and adapted in Brazil — for mobilizing supporters against democratic processes. Democratic societies need to recognize this template and develop counter-narratives, legal responses, and public education programs that address it prospectively, not reactively.

Discussion Questions

1. Brazil's Bolsonaro spent three years building election doubt before the 2022 vote. What institutional and legal mechanisms could have been employed earlier in this period to counter the false claims before they became deeply embedded in supporters' beliefs?

2. The Brazilian military's decision to stand down and not support post-election anti-democratic action was crucial. What factors explain this decision? Are those factors replicable in other countries where civil-military relations are less institutionalized?

3. WhatsApp's forwarding limits reduced some forms of viral disinformation spread but were insufficient to prevent the January 8 events. What additional measures by Meta (WhatsApp's parent) might have been effective? What are the limits of platform-based countermeasures for encrypted private messaging?

4. The comparison between January 6 (US) and January 8 (Brazil) reveals structural similarities in how election disinformation escalates to political violence. What specific features of the information environment in both countries made this escalation possible? What specific interventions might have prevented it?

5. The Brazilian Supreme Court's aggressive response to election disinformation — including temporarily blocking platforms — was effective in some specific cases but raised concerns about concentrating significant power in individual officials. How should democracies balance the need for rapid institutional response to election disinformation with the risk of government overreach?

6. Brazil's experience suggests that evangelical Christian church networks can serve as efficient distribution channels for election disinformation within their congregant communities. What approaches — if any — are appropriate for addressing disinformation that spreads through religious community networks? What concerns about religious freedom and autonomy are relevant?