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News Post: How The Brazilian Left Won An Election with the Internet · Never Post

• 0:10
  Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
• 0:13
  podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
• 0:16
  Rugnetta. This intro was written on Tuesday, 10/27/2026 at
• 0:20
  10:28AM eastern, and we have an electable show for you this
• 0:26
  week. In this, our monthly news episode for October, I chat with
• 0:31
  Caio Almendra, writer, podcast host, and organizer with
• 0:34
  Brazil's Socialism and Liberty Party about Lula da Silva's come
• 0:39
  from behind win in the Brazilian presidential election this last
• 0:43
  weekend in which the Internet, online organizing, and tech
• 0:47
  companies had taken a central role. But first, we're gonna
• 0:51
  take a quick break.
• 0:52
  You will listen to some ads unless you are on the member
• 0:54
  feed, and when we return, we'll talk about a few of the things
• 0:57
  that have happened since the last time you heard from us. Our
• 1:02
  house is a very, very, very fine house with two cats in the yard.
• 1:07
  Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy because of
• 1:11
  you and our five stories this week. Okay.
• 1:17
  Right up front, there are gonna be two pieces of show news that
• 1:20
  I wanna get through. First, one, Georgia was on proxy with Yahweh
• 1:25
  Shah talking about her biggest fear, which I'm not gonna spoil
• 1:29
  it, but if you haven't heard the episode, it is probably not what
• 1:32
  you were expecting. You can go back one app in this feed in
• 1:36
  your podcatcher because we cross posted it, or even better, go
• 1:40
  subscribe to Proxy. It's great. We're big Yowie fans.
• 1:43
  Listen. Please listen. Listen. Go listen. And two, t shirts.
• 1:49
  We're selling them. You're buying them, I hope. Link in the
• 1:52
  show notes. This design was unveiled during stream week, and
• 1:56
  folks, we have been so busy, and I'm not gonna lie, a little
• 1:59
  disorganized. We have not even had time to set up the store to
• 2:03
  take your money, but they are finally here.
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  The fucked up little melty guy designed by Nate Bear. Oh, I
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  love it. So it is in t shirt form, ready to come into your
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  home and get goo all over your stuff. There's a link in the
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  show notes. Please note these are presales.
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  So you're gonna have a few weeks or so to get an order in, and
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  then when the presales close, we're gonna print them all up in
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  one go. We're gonna send them all out in one go, and then this
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  design will go away forever. So if you like it, get in there
• 2:34
  now. Make sure you get one. Will these arrive for Christmas?
• 2:38
  You are wondering? Probably not, but we love you anyway. Okay. On
• 2:44
  with the actual news here we go. Microsoft is offering buyouts to
• 2:52
  upwards of a quarter of its total employees.
• 2:56
  In a memo sent this week, workers were offered, quote, the
• 2:59
  opportunity to leave Microsoft with financial support and
• 3:02
  career planning resources, end quote. The company is offering
• 3:07
  to cut ties with up to 60,000 staffers in AI experiences,
• 3:12
  Copilot, Core AI, Windows and devices, Xbox, finance, and
• 3:16
  human resources teams. Cloud and AI, Microsoft AI teams, and
• 3:20
  corporate, external and legal affairs are all also partly
• 3:25
  implicated according to The Verge. The tech giant recently
• 3:28
  gutted its games division, firing nearly 5,000 employees in
• 3:33
  and adjacent to its Xbox team. This year, Microsoft has also
• 3:37
  engaged in what tech insider labeled last March, quote, maybe
• 3:41
  the largest technology investment cycle ever
• 3:45
  undertaken.
• 3:46
  For the quarter ending July 2026, Microsoft was then on pace
• 3:50
  to spend $190,000,000,000 on AI infrastructure. While its Azure
• 3:57
  cloud development platform has grown significantly this year,
• 4:01
  headlines have been dominated by the lackluster uptake in its
• 4:04
  consumer AI products like Copilot, especially in
• 4:07
  comparison to the total user base that has Windows installed.
• 4:16
  Polymarket employs an ad hoc group of social media users to
• 4:21
  boost its presence according to reporting done by Mikhail Cella
• 4:25
  for his newsletter, ReaderGrev. The program focuses on the
• 4:29
  prediction market's esports arms with quote over 800 participants
• 4:34
  and offers ranging from $10 to several $100 per post paid in
• 4:39
  crypto, end quote. The program is managed via a Discord which
• 4:44
  includes esports professionals and fans alike.
• 4:47
  Users are encouraged to repost Polymarket posts in a way where
• 4:51
  it is not always clear they have been compensated, and if so, how
• 4:55
  much? Cella reports that the program does have quote robust
• 4:59
  guidelines around disclosure and the kinds of quote retweets the
• 5:04
  company is looking for end quote. Though explicit reminders
• 5:07
  that posts must include a paid partnership tag have apparently
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  declined. This comes at a time when several states are looking
• 5:15
  at increased regulation around betting markets and related
• 5:19
  products. Following reports done by Jake Pearson at ProPublica,
• 5:23
  New York announced two new rules that sportsbook apps will have
• 5:27
  to abide by.
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  The first further details the ways in which these services
• 5:31
  would have to identify and reach out to gamblers exhibiting a
• 5:34
  signs of addiction, and the second would bar the services
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  from using artificial intelligence to adjust various
• 5:41
  betting parameters on an individual basis.
• 5:44
  Caio Almendra: Stop it.
• 5:46
  Mike Rugnetta: Signal has said that it will not abide by bill c
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  22, Canada's new sweeping surveillance law that is making
• 5:54
  its way through the government. The bill would require various
• 5:57
  service providers to store metadata about their customers,
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  effectively forcing services like VPNs and encrypted chat
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  programs to undermine their own fundamental value proposition.
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  Signal, a secure messaging app, has said that it would pull out
• 6:13
  of the Canadian market if the bill passes. The bill specifies
• 6:17
  that so called core providers who do not adhere to the
• 6:21
  regulation would be fined up to $250,000 per day. Google has
• 6:27
  said the bill, quote, undermines the principles of transparency
• 6:30
  and due process, describing it as highly problematic.
• 6:34
  Stop it. Taylor Swift has a streaming rival. Michael Smith
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  from Cornelius, North Carolina, quote, fraudulently in inflated
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  plays of AI generated music on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple
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  Music, and YouTube during a period from 2017 to 2024. The
• 6:55
  Justice Department of the United States writes that, quote, in
• 6:57
  April 2023, the entire catalog of Taylor Swift received
• 7:01
  9,300,000 streams on YouTube music from family plan streams.
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  While in the same month, Smith's bot accounts used family plans
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  to fraudulently stream his AI generated music 80,900,000
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  times.
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  Smith was sentenced this month to eighteen months in prison for
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  using 52 different services to stream nearly 700 songs a day.
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  Using the US government's own approved terminology, US
• 7:31
  attorney Jamie McDonald said in a statement, Michael Smith
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  exploited super intelligence technology to generate fraud.
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  This office is committed to ensuring the integrity of all
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  markets and protecting the public from those who use super
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  intelligence for fraud. And finally, Brazil's incumbent left
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  wing president, Luis Innacio Lula da Silva, won reelection on
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  Sunday after a surprising loss in round one voting to Flavio
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  Bolsonaro, son of disgraced and now imprisoned former president,
• 8:08
  Jair Bolsonaro. Much ink has been spilled about the role the
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  Internet has played in the win from WhatsApp groups with
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  millions of members to memes to Lula's promise to now regulate
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  meta after accusations of pro Bolsonaro moderation practices.
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  After the break, we'll talk with Caio Almendra, writer,
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  podcaster, and organizer with Brazil's Socialism and Liberty
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  Party about the win and how the Internet was one of many tools
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  in their organizing playbook. This last Sunday on October
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  twenty fifth, Brazilian president, Lula da Silva, won a
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  fourth term after what some described as a shocking come
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  from behind victory. The incumbent lost to right wing
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  challenger Flavio Bolsonaro, son to the now imprisoned Jair
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  Bolsonaro during first round voting on October 4 and trailed
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  in polls and projections by only a few percentage points up until
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  the second round of voting last weekend. Regardless of the thin
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  margin media and the right wing discourse machine made a
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  Bosonado victory seem inevitable. Meta as well was
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  heavily accused of censoring the da Silva campaign and favoring
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  Bolsonaro, though it says it does not pick sides and complied
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  with all of Brazil's election related laws.
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  The US State Department as well has been accused of attempting
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  to tip the scales, though by now it seems they have no interest
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  in supporting any contestations. Commentators have specifically
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  lauded the Brazilian left's organizing tactics online. A
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  massive WhatsApp group has become a thing of legend. Run by
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  Andre Janones, a 42 year old Brazilian congressman, the chat
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  became a font of cultural Jainanism, an organizing
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  approach defined by urgency, irreverence, and constant calls
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  to action. The effectiveness of this digital approach did not,
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  though, soften Lula's criticism of social media.
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  By the end of the campaign, he had gone so far as to suggest it
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  is time for Brazil to more heavily regulate social media.
• 10:25
  Joining me to talk about all of this is Caio Almendra, an
• 10:29
  organizer with Brazil's left wing socialism and liberty party
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  or PISAU. Caio is a writer at the Superstructure podcast with
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  Julian Field, the former opinion editor at Intercept Brazil, and
• 10:41
  through his work with the consultancy Academy and Studio
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  Templo, is a cofounder of the Brazilian Institute of Data
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  Science. Caio, thanks for being here.
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  Caio Almendra: Oh, I'm glad to be here.
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  Mike Rugnetta: For the folks in our audience who might be just
• 10:58
  very unfamiliar with Brazilian politics and know there has been
• 11:02
  an election, and know that a lot of people are very happy and
• 11:05
  maybe a little surprised about the results of that election. I
• 11:09
  was wondering if you could just give us a very broad overview of
• 11:14
  Lula da Silva's platform versus Flavio Boscenero's platform.
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  Caio Almendra: Lula da Silva was a labor union leader in the
• 11:23
  seventies. The strikes that he led ended the Brazil
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  dictatorship, so he was a really important historical figure in
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  Brazil. Has been a presidential candidate since 1989 and was
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  elected in 2002. He commanded the country for two mandates for
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  eight years. So mainly, he dwelled in extreme poverty.
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  He tried to solve the problem of extreme poverty. The main policy
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  of this first cycle of Bula government was Bolsa Familia,
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  and it was direct wealth transfer from the government to
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  the poorest people in Brazil. This made Brazilian extreme
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  poverty basically end. Then the new Liberal Congress did a coup
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  to impose a more fiscal hawk agenda. After that, Bolsonaro
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  was elected.
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  He was also from the dictatorship, but not from the
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  people that fought against the dictatorship. He fought to
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  postpone the end of the dictatorship. He entered
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  politics by trying a terrorist plot to bomb military
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  headquarters, very authoritarian in the small politics of
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  everything. So LGBT rights, future spending, education
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  spending, all of us being cut because of of Jai Bolsonaro.
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  Then he lost to Lula.
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  During these four years, Jai Bolsonaro was arrested for his
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  couplat attempt, our our January 6, which happened in 01/08/2023.
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  He was arrested 1000 and... I think, in fact, 1,500 people
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  were arrested with him. The main backers of the of the coup plot
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  weren't. So this kept the historical block of Bolsonarismo
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  alive.
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  His older son was the leader of this opposition against Zula. He
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  was considered an especially weak candidate. He was also the
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  part of the family that was more clearly connected to corruption
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  and especially organized crime. His platform was basically...
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  There was...
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  There's a sketch in Brazil that he's dressed like Hitler and
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  say, I wanna make Brazil get better by hiring better people
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  and doing better stuff. He's... Doesn't say anything. Lula,
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  meanwhile, didn't have in the first run a very clear agenda of
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  what he was going to do. But on the last week of the first
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  round, he he banned it by a decree sporting bets in Brazil.
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  And people may not be aware, but Brazilian is the greatest market
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  for sporting bets in the whole world. And after during the the
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  second runoff, he... Lula began a really popular fishing agenda.
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  He even said himself, on the second run, I I I learned the
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  the most important lesson of my life is that when the government
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  doesn't know what to do, it asks the people and the people teach
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  him.
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  Mike Rugnetta: You organize with the Socialism and Liberty Party,
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  which is a member of the coalition that won on Sunday.
• 14:30
  Yeah. And it is an offshoot of Lula's own workers party as of,
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  like, twenty five years ago or so. So I'm just curious what
• 14:38
  your last three weeks have been like between round one voting
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  and round two voting. Like, have you slept?
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  How many steps have you walked? Have you walked a thousand
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  miles? Like, what was that intervening time of organizing
• 14:52
  like?
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  Caio Almendra: I have twins. They are six years old. They
• 14:55
  were born during the beginning of the pandemic, fourteen days
• 14:59
  before the quarantine in Brazil. Wow. So being a parent is always
• 15:03
  very tiresome to me.
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  And during this three... Last three weeks, since I didn't have
• 15:09
  to to campaign when I was with my kids, being with my kids were
• 15:14
  like resting. Vacation time. Yeah. Vacation time.
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  I have I have to save my kid for eight hours and two six years
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  old make me... Boys jumping on around and say, oh, this is so
• 15:25
  hassle. Rio De Janeiro is a is a really big city. People come to
• 15:32
  to Rio and Sao Paulo and and think, oh my god, this is huge.
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  Rio De Janeiro has 12,000,000 people.
• 15:38
  And there is a reality of militias means that you have to
• 15:43
  campaign always with a lot of people because they can shoot
• 15:48
  you all. If you go alone, you can be, you know, tortured or
• 15:52
  spanked or simply intimidated to don't campaign there. So we have
• 15:56
  to organize things like caravans to places to to vote. We have
• 16:02
  huge demonstrations in Brazil, in huge area especially. Every
• 16:06
  single moment we don't have...
• 16:08
  We didn't make these caravans to go to militia areas and try to
• 16:12
  to canvas there and so on. We would go to Centrao, that is the
• 16:17
  central station of the train in Rio. But also during the the
• 16:22
  second rounds, there was this huge phenomenon of becoming a
• 16:27
  bot, becoming a Internet bot. You had... Interesting.
• 16:30
  There was this huge broadcast channel called Army of Lula. The
• 16:34
  guy have missions to do every day. So even when you have rest,
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  when you are going to sleep, you take the cell phone and say, my
• 16:41
  god, I didn't miss... I didn't share this post. I didn't do
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  this mission and so on.
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  So everyone was really tired and also internet tired because we
• 16:51
  also had to obey Yeah. You can't not do it.
• 16:56
  Mike Rugnetta: This is the... If I'm understanding correctly,
• 16:58
  this is the... Is this the WhatsApp group with like a
• 17:00
  million members?
• 17:02
  Caio Almendra: 11,000,000 members.
• 17:03
  Mike Rugnetta: 11,000,000 members. I mean, that is like...
• 17:07
  That is one of the questions I wanna ask is like, how does that
• 17:09
  even work? So there were missions.
• 17:12
  Caio Almendra: Yeah. So so let's go.
• 17:14
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Let's go.
• 17:18
  Caio Almendra: Andre Chiron is a is a really interesting figure
• 17:20
  because he he started his life in... His political life in p t
• 17:25
  e m p t, in the workers party, in Lula's party. Then he left to
• 17:28
  a far right party because he's evangelical. Then he went to a
• 17:33
  centrist party called Forward and was going to be a
• 17:37
  presidential candidate. Lula found him and now and after
• 17:40
  that, he became Lula's first federine.
• 17:45
  He's really good at the Internet and the public, but mainly what
• 17:48
  he does captured the sense of hopelessness, the fear and so on
• 17:53
  we were getting. So when the results of the first the first
• 17:59
  round appeared, we were lost. And suddenly, Janon said, we're
• 18:04
  gonna win this shit. We... You just have to do this this this
• 18:07
  this this.
• 18:08
  Go on. Urgent. Blast off. And so he was shouting...
• 18:12
  Mike Rugnetta: So like very like, you have things to do,
• 18:14
  Caio Almendra: go do them. Go do them.... If you do, you will
• 18:16
  win.
• 18:16
  Mike Rugnetta: Very urgent. Yeah.
• 18:18
  Caio Almendra: So yeah. He became a meme in himself because
• 18:21
  every video he he posted it start with, folks, urgent. And
• 18:25
  and everyone ended with, bless it out. He was shouting and so
• 18:29
  on. He's a very energetic person.
• 18:31
  Yeah. In the beginning, this was small but he started one of the
• 18:35
  main task was we need to get to 1,000,000 people until Tuesday.
• 18:41
  We need to get to 2,000,000 people till Thursday.
• 18:44
  Mike Rugnetta: And does that mean... Is that like we need to
• 18:46
  we need to canvas, we have to talk to 2,000,000 people, or
• 18:48
  does that mean we need 2,000,000 people in this group?
• 18:51
  Caio Almendra: In this group.
• 18:52
  Mike Rugnetta: So he didn't start with a WhatsApp group that
• 18:54
  was already 6,000,000 people.
• 18:56
  Caio Almendra: Not millions. Probably hundreds of of
• 18:58
  thousands of people. He Yeah. He did a Lulus campaign four years
• 19:02
  ago. He has a huge contact list.
• 19:05
  Yeah. But the the... One of the main task everyone has was hit
• 19:09
  the goals of growing the the WhatsApp group alone. And you
• 19:14
  can talk. You can't talk in that WhatsApp group.
• 19:16
  You only receive his message.
• 19:18
  Mike Rugnetta: So it's a... It's broadcast only and then you go
• 19:21
  somewhere else to have a person to person conversation.
• 19:24
  Caio Almendra: Exactly. What So he did was this. Well, the first
• 19:26
  task was making the the broadcast channel even huger.
• 19:30
  And then he has a few rules everyone should do, like don't
• 19:35
  engage with right wing discourse. It was called block
• 19:39
  on sight.
• 19:40
  Oh, they they are gonna talk about x y and z, block on sight.
• 19:44
  You knew people would just pre block hashtags that the far
• 19:48
  right would eventually try to to make it viral. He also had a lot
• 19:54
  of flood zone strategies, like everyone posting the same stuff.
• 19:59
  For the last ten years, the far right in Brazil has been
• 20:03
  fomenting this environment of a small WhatsApp groups. It's a
• 20:08
  little bit like a more a more centralized Creoleon because a
• 20:13
  huge environment, but it has an organization behind that.
• 20:17
  And this is way more relevant to actually change people's minds
• 20:22
  than general honest channels. Why? Because this make
• 20:27
  redundancy in message. You touch the same point... Political
• 20:32
  talking points different channels with different videos
• 20:36
  and writings and so on.
• 20:38
  It's one of the main discovery of digital marketing. You know,
• 20:43
  the the same thing we always complain, like, you search for a
• 20:46
  shoe shoe in in Google and then you open your Instagram and
• 20:50
  there's like...
• 20:50
  Mike Rugnetta: Shows up advertising. Yeah.
• 20:52
  Caio Almendra: Yeah. So we don't see it's really relevant to
• 20:54
  convince people to change their minds about anything. What
• 20:58
  Giannis did was not try to convince people. Army of Lula
• 21:03
  broadcast channel was a way to hamper Internet communication.
• 21:07
  He would flood every single timeline with the same video.
• 21:12
  Mike Rugnetta: So you just can't talk about anything else.
• 21:13
  Caio Almendra: You can't talk about anything else Yeah. Except
• 21:15
  what he's talking about. This wasn't relevant to change
• 21:19
  people's minds. This was a defensive tactic. What was
• 21:23
  really an offensive tactic from Lula's army was the daily text
• 21:29
  reconnected to to changing one vote.
• 21:32
  Talk to a older guy that you know that don't go to vote
• 21:35
  because he's too old. Now offer yourself to help him go to the
• 21:39
  polling station. Talk to one guy that you know is a liberal,
• 21:42
  economic liberal, a fish cowhawk, but is a little bit
• 21:47
  scared of Bolsonaro's authoritarian agenda. Talk to
• 21:51
  one person, do you know, that says that Lula is corrupt and
• 21:54
  and talk about this, a news piece about Yeah. Flavio
• 21:59
  Bolsonaro's corruption.
• 22:00
  Mike Rugnetta: So, like, not only not only find this person
• 22:02
  and talk to them, but, like, here's a little bit of, like,
• 22:05
  ammunition as it were or, like Yeah. You know, something to
• 22:08
  help you with how to talk to them and what point to make.
• 22:11
  Caio Almendra: And it was a it was a one by one. Yeah. It was a
• 22:14
  grassroots mobilization using this this broadcast channel.
• 22:17
  Everyone has to talk to one person. If 11,000,000 people
• 22:20
  talk to one person...
• 22:21
  That's pretty good. Yeah. 11,000,000 votes. Enough to
• 22:23
  change it. Yeah.
• 22:24
  Yeah. Yeah. And so there was this this multilayered tactics.
• 22:29
  Grow the group, flood the zone, do DM, grassrooting chemistry.
• 22:34
  Mike Rugnetta: And so there's there's two things that you
• 22:36
  mentioned that I wanna talk about a little bit more. The
• 22:38
  first is you sort of suggested it in your conversation, but we
• 22:43
  talked about it more explicitly before we started recording,
• 22:46
  which is fighting the sense of doomerism and people being like,
• 22:52
  there's no way we're gonna win. It's in the bag for the other
• 22:55
  guy. Like, it's over. It's not gonna happen.
• 22:58
  What sorts of tactics do you develop to combat that attitude?
• 23:02
  Caio Almendra: I'm a off... Oddball in the subject because
• 23:06
  and are really hopeful message here always because we came from
• 23:15
  liberation theology Right? Yeah. Marxist Liberation Theology and
• 23:18
  being a labor union.
• 23:20
  Mike Rugnetta: There's no there's no other future except
• 23:22
  the future for the workers and it's just a matter of when we
• 23:24
  get there. Yeah.
• 23:25
  Caio Almendra: Yeah. Exactly. And Liberation Theology is like
• 23:27
  Christ told us to make this this world heaven. So we have to be
• 23:34
  hopeful that we can together make this whole. And then also,
• 23:39
  I'm a little bit of an audible because Benedict Espinosa, the
• 23:42
  philosopher, he said that fear and hope is the same thing.
• 23:47
  Because fear is the expectation that something future... In the
• 23:52
  future something bad will happen. Hope is expectation that
• 23:55
  in the future something good would happen. Mhmm. Since every
• 23:58
  expectation has inside it the opposite of the expectation, you
• 24:03
  know.
• 24:04
  Are not sure something will happen. Every time you have
• 24:07
  fear, you have hope. Every time you have hope, you have fear.
• 24:11
  It's the same stuff. It's the same coin with two sides.
• 24:14
  And fear can be freezing. Right? You can be very paralyzing.
• 24:20
  Dumerism is fear paralyzing us. But hope is not a solution
• 24:26
  because every time we're hopeful, you don't necessarily
• 24:30
  act to to...
• 24:31
  Sure.
• 24:32
  Mike Rugnetta: It's another kind of paralyzing maybe.
• 24:34
  Caio Almendra: Another kind of... Exactly. Yeah. Another
• 24:36
  kind of paralyzing. But, you know, the same.
• 24:39
  However, they can be used and especially they can be used
• 24:44
  together. Everyone was so scared on Sunday, on on the first round
• 24:50
  on on October 5. I was in Plaza San Salvador. That's basically
• 24:55
  the comic corridor of of Eugenieur, polling places where
• 24:59
  70% voted for Lula and so on. Everyone was doomed.
• 25:05
  There was too many people there, so the the bill was warm. It
• 25:10
  sucked. We received the the worst news possible. And what
• 25:14
  ended up happening is that this fear was a little bit mobilizing
• 25:17
  because every news... New news about Flavio's agenda, and he
• 25:23
  was so cocky, so arrogant, he was so sure he was gonna win.
• 25:26
  Yeah. Worked to convince people to do something. But most
• 25:31
  importantly, everything began with collective organization.
• 25:35
  Two days later, students in all Rio De Janeiro gathered like
• 25:40
  100,000 people in the center of the street, and we had the
• 25:44
  hugest cycles of mobilizations of of street riots and rallies
• 25:49
  in the history of Brazil. Wow.
• 25:50
  Greater than the rhythm characterization. Wow. And this
• 25:54
  all were multi channeled. It was Yeah. The armour of Rule, and
• 25:58
  everyone on on the rally was talking about the armour of
• 26:00
  Rule.
• 26:00
  Hey, did you do the... Your test today, your mission? Yeah. Do
• 26:05
  you know any any old person I I can help going to the polling
• 26:09
  station and so on? And this collective sentiment that we can
• 26:13
  win, and also the fear is like the same the same side of the
• 26:17
  coin through the sense of social and social strength and
• 26:22
  collectivization, it get a a snowball effect.
• 26:26
  And I mean, finally, there is the mamification. It's really
• 26:29
  relevant to to Internet talk, but... Yeah. Oh, I have a
• 26:33
  boyfriend that that have two that have two friends that vote
• 26:38
  for Bolsonaro. We are gonna have a barbecue on Saturday on a city
• 26:43
  closer here, and then I'm gonna slash the tires so that we can
• 26:47
  get back.
• 26:48
  I'm one vote, they are three. I'm winning. And this became
• 26:53
  such a huge meme. People talking about weird things to do to to
• 26:56
  to tip the scales and so on. And also the the whole bring your
• 27:01
  grandma to to the polling station was a huge more
• 27:04
  movement.
• 27:06
  And this end up making Lula wins in place that we wouldn't dare
• 27:11
  to to believe this this would happen. Yeah.
• 27:13
  Mike Rugnetta: So I mean, it sounds like the answer is like
• 27:16
  you fight this sort of... It sounds like it doesn't make
• 27:20
  sense, but it sounds like you fight the sort of pair...
• 27:22
  Paralyzing force of doomerism by just doing stuff. Kind of no
• 27:28
  matter how small the stuff is as maybe indicated by... You're
• 27:33
  gonna tell me if I'm gonna say it wrong.
• 27:35
  Jainonism? Jainonism. Yeah. Jainonism. Like, write like
• 27:38
  small tasks, manageable tasks, little things, a couple things a
• 27:42
  day that it's like that is sort of what gets you out of this
• 27:46
  sense of like, well, we're cooked, we're done, there's
• 27:48
  nothing we can do.
• 27:49
  If you just go do stuff, you're you're doing it. You are doing
• 27:52
  it.
• 27:53
  Caio Almendra: And collectively doing
• 27:54
  Mike Rugnetta: it. And collectively doing Yeah.
• 27:56
  Caio Almendra: I think if if if Genomics channel doesn't have...
• 27:59
  Didn't have millions of people, people would proportionally do
• 28:03
  less stuff. The fact that it has 11,000,000 people make everyone
• 28:07
  thinks, yeah, I just have to do one and so we we won. So you
• 28:10
  need the
• 28:11
  Mike Rugnetta: 11,000,000
• 28:11
  Caio Almendra: people to one.... To to be convinced to to be...
• 28:16
  To do one.
• 28:17
  Mike Rugnetta: To to what degree do you think the success, the
• 28:20
  overall success of the election can be attributed to that
• 28:26
  WhatsApp chat?
• 28:27
  Caio Almendra: Alright. I don't wanna don't wanna fall in a
• 28:33
  great man of history, Terry Reese. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
• 28:36
  Mike Rugnetta: That's why... I mean, that's kinda why I'm
• 28:38
  asking because I don't I don't I don't want to either.
• 28:40
  Caio Almendra: There's this lady called Erica Hilton. She's a
• 28:44
  trans congresswoman from Sao Paulo. She had a similar
• 28:47
  channel. 2,000,000 people. Yeah.
• 28:50
  If there was no Gianonius, she probably would have 11,000,000
• 28:53
  people.
• 28:53
  Mike Rugnetta: Sure. Right.
• 28:54
  Caio Almendra: There was this huge social pressure. There was
• 28:58
  no formal and old old style organization, classic
• 29:01
  organization. BT lost its historical block. Neoliberalism
• 29:06
  was destroying their organization. Yeah.
• 29:08
  A little bit like what happened to to the democrats during the
• 29:11
  seventies and the eighties. Like, they used to organize FDR
• 29:14
  made... Created a huge organization for us. The civil
• 29:18
  rights movement was a huge organization for us. After the
• 29:22
  seventy eighties and nineties, this this mobilization
• 29:25
  capability was lost.
• 29:27
  The idea is that mass politics was lost. Yeah. So there was no
• 29:32
  channel, but there was still pressure. It's a little bit like
• 29:36
  tension from any physics stuff. Like, there's a lot of of water
• 29:42
  in the sky.
• 29:43
  There's no way to to get it down, then it just floods
• 29:46
  something. So Jamal Nguyen was relevant because he's smart in
• 29:51
  how to do it, but he's not the only smart person doing this.
• 29:56
  Like, I mean, Erica Hutton is a trans socialist woman in Sao
• 29:59
  Paulo and she like she won 3,000,000 votes.
• 30:01
  Mike Rugnetta: I was gonna... And it's also like, right, the
• 30:03
  most voted woman in Brazilian politics history and like Yeah.
• 30:07
  Has millions of followers herself online and massively
• 30:10
  popular.
• 30:11
  Caio Almendra: Massively popular. Gianluo Nos, for
• 30:13
  instance, he had 78,000 votes. He has less than one... He has
• 30:19
  about 2%, 3% of her vote. Less than 3% of her of her vote.
• 30:23
  Mike Rugnetta: So I mean, it it it sounds like what you're
• 30:25
  saying is that, like, there's... It's like people were looking
• 30:28
  for somewhere. People wanted to be told what to do in a certain
• 30:32
  in a certain way. They were looking for a place together and
• 30:35
  it just so happened circumstances colluded and his
• 30:39
  chat ended up being the place where that happened.
• 30:42
  Caio Almendra: Exactly.
• 30:43
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah.
• 30:43
  Caio Almendra: I mean, when you're totally lost, there is
• 30:47
  this this one small part of the discussion that we are not
• 30:50
  talking about. He uses a little bit of military jargon. Right?
• 30:55
  Mike Rugnetta: Interesting.
• 30:56
  Caio Almendra: Do it, missions and... The army. Yeah. The army
• 31:00
  and When so you're lost, someone has an idea, someone who is
• 31:06
  giving orders, you just have to do it and you you can't
• 31:10
  overthink anything works.
• 31:12
  Mike Rugnetta: Put aside a bunch of your personal opinions and
• 31:15
  your preferences or whatever. This is something bigger than
• 31:18
  you. Yeah. The one... The last thing that I wanted to follow-up
• 31:21
  on that I...
• 31:22
  That I'm really curious about, that I think Americans in
• 31:25
  particular could learn a lot from and try to practice
• 31:28
  themselves is the practice of block on-site. And I'm really
• 31:34
  curious about how it is that worked. How does that message
• 31:39
  get delivered? And then how does it spread? Because I think
• 31:43
  especially at...
• 31:45
  Especially now and especially in the age of, like, social media
• 31:48
  and ubiquitous metrics and ever present measurement of every
• 31:54
  kind of piece of communication that you do, it's like you are
• 31:59
  rewarded. User... People who are using social media are rewarded
• 32:02
  at every turn for the dunk, for the the forwarding of a talking
• 32:09
  point that they do not believe in in order to make fun of it or
• 32:13
  in order to argue against it. And I feel like for a lot of
• 32:16
  people, it would be so hard to internalize the sense of I'm
• 32:22
  gonna block and I'm gonna just advertise my point of view, and
• 32:26
  I'm not gonna respond or add to the notoriety of a counter point
• 32:31
  of view. So I'm just curious how how did that work?
• 32:34
  How did that go?
• 32:34
  Caio Almendra: I have a huge following on Twitter. Have a
• 32:37
  huge following on Blue Sky. Probably YouTube, Mike. But it
• 32:40
  was just hammered down through John On his channel. Just simply
• 32:44
  every single post is talking with block on-site, don't
• 32:47
  engage.
• 32:48
  Block on-site, don't engage. Block on-site. They're gonna
• 32:50
  talk about that. This is bullshit. We have to talk about
• 32:52
  it.
• 32:53
  More people will learn about it. Block on-site, don't engage. He
• 32:56
  even does stuff like... I think he has a a few spies inside
• 33:00
  Flavio Bolsonaro's campaign. Probably technical people that
• 33:04
  are lullaboulders that talk to him.
• 33:07
  Like, I don't know, social media manager blah blah blah.
• 33:10
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah.
• 33:10
  Caio Almendra: Yeah. So he knew a little bit of the tactics they
• 33:13
  were going to use. So he preemptively said, they're gonna
• 33:17
  talk about it, block on-site. Yeah. The main point was every
• 33:21
  single post about what to do has block on-site, don't engage on
• 33:27
  the top.
• 33:28
  Every single one.
• 33:29
  Mike Rugnetta: Every single one.... It's like a mantra.
• 33:30
  Caio Almendra: It's just... It's like a mantra.
• 33:32
  Mike Rugnetta: Over and over and over again. Yeah.
• 33:34
  Caio Almendra: So it's like repetition. And, you know, there
• 33:36
  was also a sense of collective collective work because if you
• 33:43
  didn't block on sites and if you didn't engage and you were left
• 33:45
  in person, people would spam you. Sure. The meme saying block
• 33:50
  on sites.
• 33:51
  Mike Rugnetta: So there were so there were consequences too.
• 33:53
  There were social pressure. Yeah.
• 33:54
  Caio Almendra: Yeah. There were there was a huge meme that
• 33:58
  was... Look like disappointed to you saying Uh-huh. Why are you
• 34:03
  engaging in?
• 34:09
  Mike Rugnetta: You find that attitude impacting your in
• 34:12
  person organizing or canvassing in any way?
• 34:17
  Caio Almendra: The problem with fascism, with this neo techno
• 34:21
  turbofasions that we live... Every single country has
• 34:25
  nowadays, It's capable of being in sad and negative effect. This
• 34:32
  is a true source of our disengagement. Yeah. It's having
• 34:36
  to deal with the most hateful.
• 34:40
  And they're all sad and sometimes dumbness is also a
• 34:42
  sadness effect. Like, you read stuff like, I don't wanna I
• 34:45
  don't wanna... I I can't even try to fathom how to change this
• 34:49
  guy idea. This is so stupid. And then you'd...
• 34:53
  Oh, probably this cost is over.
• 34:55
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah.
• 34:55
  Caio Almendra: And when you you start the blocking side thing,
• 34:58
  suddenly your timeline feels so much better. You you get over
• 35:06
  the stability, you get over the hate, And soon you start like,
• 35:10
  okay, this is a place I can talk to people again. Yeah. Just a
• 35:14
  little bit why Blue Sky still captivates a lot of liberals
• 35:19
  even in The US because it's an anti far right social network,
• 35:25
  especially because the blocking feature is very strong there.
• 35:29
  However, it's really a problem when blue sky gets a little bit
• 35:33
  echo chamber when people don't realize the whole picture of the
• 35:39
  society.
• 35:41
  So you have to find the good luck spots where you either
• 35:45
  can... You can talk to different people, but you are not
• 35:48
  inundated by people that makes you don't want to talk to nobody
• 35:51
  because that's what neofascism do in the Internet.
• 35:55
  Mike Rugnetta: Sure. You have to be able to engage so that you
• 35:58
  can operate but not lose hope.
• 36:00
  Caio Almendra: Yeah. None of this would work on the Internet
• 36:03
  if there was no mobilization in the streets. Right? No one would
• 36:07
  stay so so much hours on the Internet doing so many tasks and
• 36:12
  so on. We didn't gather in the streets and had real talk to
• 36:18
  people to...
• 36:19
  And and this sense of commonality that we are fighting
• 36:22
  for something more. I brought my kids to the rallies on the beach
• 36:27
  every Sunday and my friend's kids were there and so on. We
• 36:31
  were fighting for the kids. Were fighting for our future. We were
• 36:34
  fighting for other peoples and so on.
• 36:36
  But also the sense that they were fighting for me too. The
• 36:40
  Internet is always a little bit of a Diet Coke of sociability.
• 36:45
  You drink it, you get stuff, but you don't get any nutrition...
• 36:49
  Real nutrition. Right?
• 36:50
  Mike Rugnetta: Sure.
• 36:50
  Caio Almendra: That's the whole problem. You you are more and
• 36:53
  more and closer, you are more and more alone. And then you
• 36:57
  talk to people online, people think you're like, oh, I have
• 37:00
  friends. Yeah. We have podcasts.
• 37:03
  We know how parasocial means people can get crazy about it.
• 37:08
  The idea that anyone that says anything hope... Hopeful was the
• 37:13
  leader, the shining guys and so on. But afterwards, this shifted
• 37:17
  from the parasocial to the social. People met people on the
• 37:22
  street.
• 37:22
  People made friendships. People would leave the rallies and
• 37:25
  would drink a beer with their friends. If people they met,
• 37:28
  they're alone and so on. So this was the the real solution. It
• 37:32
  was redundant.
• 37:33
  It was not only redundant on Giannis. It was redundant
• 37:36
  through different actions everyone was was taken every
• 37:41
  day. Yeah. One of the
• 37:42
  Mike Rugnetta: things that I've one of the things that I've seen
• 37:43
  people talk about is the idea of using WhatsApp, right, which is
• 37:48
  a meta product, as a way to kind of defeat what it seems like,
• 37:54
  you know, Meta and Facebook and WhatsApp want you to do, which
• 37:57
  is to just stay on the platform. And that really is like the
• 38:00
  beauty of... It sounds like how these tools were used that is
• 38:03
  used to gather a bunch of people to sort of organize them, give
• 38:08
  them direction, you know, give them... Put a force behind them
• 38:12
  that ultimately says to them, close the app and then go and do
• 38:18
  something, you know, with people outside.
• 38:20
  Caio Almendra: Yeah. And this is the the weird part of of
• 38:24
  Brazilian politics. I... We don't talk a lot about this this
• 38:27
  part of the stuff, but Lula would never touch meta. He
• 38:31
  was...
• 38:32
  Wasn't going to regulate meta. But meta was so so so messy this
• 38:39
  this second runoff. They try to to to destroy the channel a lot
• 38:44
  of times. There's this weird stuff about Nicolas Ferreira,
• 38:47
  it's a far right congressperson. He had a a video with a lie
• 38:52
  saying Luma was going to tax PIX.
• 38:55
  That's the public automatic payment system in Brazil. It's a
• 39:00
  really important thing in Brazil because it's first in this... In
• 39:04
  in the world. In fact, India has also one. But it means that you
• 39:08
  can't sanction people in Brazil.
• 39:11
  In fact, you can take their credit card and Visa and doesn't
• 39:15
  mean they can't pay stuff, they can't use the bank and so on.
• 39:18
  But it's also very popular because you don't have to have
• 39:21
  cash. It can be, you know, the the guy that sells candy on the
• 39:25
  streets, the guy that sells cookies on the on the beach.
• 39:29
  They accept pigs. Since that...
• 39:33
  Nicolas Perjera said Lula was going to tax pigs in Brazil. And
• 39:38
  that video had more views than people that speaks Portuguese in
• 39:44
  the whole world.
• 39:46
  Mike Rugnetta: And... Wow.
• 39:49
  Caio Almendra: And, you know, not everyone understand
• 39:52
  Brazilian Portuguese. Brazil to to Portugal is already
• 39:55
  difficult, but Brazil to Cabo Viejo, Brazil to Angola, and
• 39:59
  especially Brazil to Macau, to to people of the Asian or to
• 40:03
  Morejalejti, to the the Asian parts of the the the world that
• 40:07
  speak Portuguese. They... We don't quite understand each
• 40:10
  other. So it was a really weird phenomenon.
• 40:13
  Yeah. And Meta would do the opposite with Vula. And the
• 40:19
  reason is is quite simple. In fact, it was not exactly about
• 40:23
  hating Vula or fearing Vula. It was more about loving Flavio
• 40:28
  Bolsonaro.
• 40:28
  He said that he would probably end picks. He was against
• 40:33
  Christian de Jumanas. It was a guy that banned x for two weeks.
• 40:38
  And after Brazil banned x for two weeks because x was refusing
• 40:43
  to to apply with a judicial order. Brazil suddenly entered
• 40:50
  the world stage as the country that could regulate social
• 40:55
  media.
• 40:56
  The United States would never. The European Commission was
• 41:00
  famously one of the the ways, it has been losing power and the
• 41:04
  Trying, far
• 41:06
  Mike Rugnetta: but... Yeah.
• 41:07
  Caio Almendra: But it's losing power. It is Yeah. Also shifting
• 41:10
  towards big tech. And there are other countries that are outside
• 41:14
  the Silicon Valley, like China and Russia that have their own
• 41:17
  ecosystems and so on. Brazil was the was the the new beacon after
• 41:22
  that decision.
• 41:24
  And Roland and Alesha de Morais are somewhat alive. Because
• 41:29
  Alesha de Morais prosecuted Jahi Bolsonaro and so on. So this
• 41:35
  made Mana be extremely evil, extremely messy in the in the
• 41:39
  second round. And it have a a really weird effect. This is
• 41:43
  just the same thing that he said, go to the platform to try
• 41:46
  the platform.
• 41:47
  Because the result was Alula saying, I think we have to
• 41:51
  regulate social media. He would never do this. It's a little bit
• 41:55
  like a a a Greek tragedy. And this is a little bit like the
• 42:00
  same thing that happens individually because we would
• 42:04
  never leave WhatsApp. Yeah.
• 42:07
  Brazil... WhatsApp is Brazil number one number one app. So
• 42:13
  they have like five... Million users in Brazil. I think like
• 42:18
  one fourth of the the country use WhatsApp.
• 42:21
  We don't phone people. We use WhatsApp phone calls because
• 42:27
  phones are... We we use so much robot calls every day that...
• 42:31
  And you can't robot call via via via WhatsApp. So we only use
• 42:36
  WhatsApp.
• 42:36
  Yeah. But meanwhile, this process make people think, yeah.
• 42:39
  You know what? Meta
• 42:41
  Mike Rugnetta: should leave the company. Why?
• 42:43
  Caio Almendra: How can't it be to do it? My my my worker asked
• 42:46
  me... My my employer asked me things through the WhatsApp. How
• 42:49
  can I Yeah? How can I I leave it?
• 42:52
  But if everyone leaves, if it's banned from Brazil, oh, now I
• 42:58
  can't leave WhatsApp. Especially... And and even the
• 43:02
  the funny stuff, like, people say there is another meme, but
• 43:06
  another popular meme that after the the Giannis ruler's army,
• 43:12
  everyone is so tired of what's happening because they had to
• 43:16
  stay stay so many times. Yeah. For a
• 43:18
  Mike Rugnetta: for a country that uses it constantly, you've
• 43:20
  now used it constantly. Exactly.
• 43:24
  Caio Almendra: So people are so tired, they say, oh my god. I
• 43:27
  can't wait for Lula to ban one second ahead. And I can't leave
• 43:30
  Lula's army. That's kind of funny. Broadcast jam.
• 43:35
  Mike Rugnetta: Kyle, this has been great. Thank you so much
• 43:38
  for joining us and for chatting with us about your experience,
• 43:41
  about the last three weeks. And beyond that, congrats to you and
• 43:45
  to everyone else. It sounds like it was an incredible amount of
• 43:48
  work, but, know, it happened.
• 43:51
  Caio Almendra: Oh, I had a blast. And and also, Brazil can
• 43:54
  be the first domino to a series of defeats of the far right. And
• 44:00
  this will only happen with sharers hours experience. So I'm
• 44:04
  really glad I can talk to you all. And I hope you learned from
• 44:08
  Giannis, Rula's army.
• 44:12
  But also, I hope we can learn from you too so we can do a lot
• 44:16
  of of exchange programs and learning programs. So again, far
• 44:20
  bright and so on. We should do the same.
• 44:22
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. To that end, if folks wanna follow your
• 44:26
  work either personally or, you know, the organizing work that's
• 44:30
  done by the party? Where can they go look online?
• 44:32
  Caio Almendra: I'm at blue sky, c a I o a l m e n d r a, Caio
• 44:39
  Member. I'm also at Twitter, Caio Member. Don't follow me on
• 44:43
  Instagram. It's a personal, only my kids photos and so on,
• 44:46
  please. I'm also at Vira Kazaka's podcast.
• 44:49
  And if you wanna see my my only content in English nowadays, my
• 44:54
  regular content in English, is Superstructure with Julian
• 44:57
  Fields. I'm finishing in the script about the history of
• 45:01
  Lula. Alright. From his birth in really region... Poor region
• 45:05
  people who work a part of the country in Penobuco until his
• 45:10
  election last Sunday.
• 45:13
  So if people will enjoy the the... This episode, I think
• 45:16
  they will love this this... I don't know how you call it
• 45:19
  biopic, and it's not a pic, biopod. Yeah. Biopod.
• 45:23
  Sure. Biopod. It's probably on November that they they will
• 45:26
  launch it.
• 45:27
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Great. We'll we'll put a link to the
• 45:29
  show in the show notes and then once it's out, we'll share it
• 45:31
  with everybody.
• 45:32
  Caio Almendra: Okay. Thank you so much.
• 45:33
  Mike Rugnetta: Thank you so much, Kyle.
• 45:35
  Caio Almendra: I had a blast. Thank you so much.
• 45:41
  Mike Rugnetta: That is the news that we have for you this month.
• 45:44
  We're gonna be back here in the main feed next week on or around
• 45:48
  Thursday, November 5. Did you know that we released a Wygo
• 45:55
  last week. Mike, you are maybe asking, what is that word that
• 46:00
  you just said? I don't know what that means.
• 46:03
  I will tell you. Wygo, w I g o. What is going on here? A members
• 46:11
  only segment in which each member of the staff brings
• 46:14
  something to the group about which they are positively
• 46:18
  flummoxed. We share it.
• 46:20
  We ask what is going on here, and then we all find out
• 46:23
  together if you would like to join in on that fun, on this
• 46:27
  fun, on the most recent why go fun during which I nearly
• 46:31
  completely incapacitate Hans and Georgia with a horrible sound,
• 46:35
  during which Hans and I wonder if perhaps we know the subject
• 46:40
  of a very catchy love song, during which Jason asks me how
• 46:46
  to make beats. You can go ahead and become a member at
• 46:50
  neverpoe.st for $4 a month, and you too will know the beat
• 46:54
  secrets. And you too can hear this horrible sound. If you want
• 46:59
  to, you can skip that part very easily, or you can use it to
• 47:02
  make beats. I'm not the boss of you.
• 47:04
  Neverpo.st. Access to the Wego, $4 a month. It's a lark. Never
• 47:11
  Post's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the
• 47:14
  mysterious, doctor first name, last name. Our senior producer
• 47:17
  is Hans Buetow.
• 47:18
  Our executive producer is Jason Oberholzer. The show's host,
• 47:21
  that's me, is Mike Rugnetta. It is a day. Excerpt of nine eight
• 47:34
  by Marc Ducharme. Never Post is a production of Charts and
• 47:38
  Leisure, and, hey, it's distributed by Radiotopia.