Latest / The Real News Podcast / Meta Chooses Sides in Brazil's Election

Transcript

Meta Chooses Sides in Brazil's Election · The Real News Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hi, folks.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Before I get started, let me just say that if
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: you're not already following Pan American Dispatch, please check it out.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: That is our new website covering the Brazilian elections around
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: the clock. It's a project of The Real News in
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: partnership with Global Exchange. We are on the ground in Brazil.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: You can find us at PanAmericanDispatch.org or on Instagram X
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: and Blue Sky at PA Dispatch. OK, I hope you
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: enjoy the show. This week, Pink Floyd's Roger Waters posted
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: this video on his Instagram account.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: You have an election on Sunday in Brazil. I love Brazil.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: I've done many, many. My name's Roger Waters, by the way.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: He looks straight at the camera. MPB, popular Brazilian music,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: is playing softly in the background. I love how succinct
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: his assessment is.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: So the two candidates are Bolsonaro, who is the son
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: of an arsehole. He's an arsehole himself. He comes from
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: a long line of arseholes. He is in cahoots with
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: the United States of America who want to steal everything
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: that you have in Brazil that's of any value, not
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: just the Amazon forest, but also any minerals or anything
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: that you might have. They want to give it to
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: the Trump family and to Jared Kushner and those other
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: assholes in the ruling elite.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: He says he's met Lula, that Lula's an honest man
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: and that people should let him go on working for them.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Sunday, the important thing is turnout. It was only 78%
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: in the first round. We need 90%, 95%, 100% turnout.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: If you have a grandmother who can't get out of
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: a chair to go to the polling station, carry her,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: put her on a donkey, put her in a car,
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: take her to the polling station and vote, vote, vote.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Only you can save Brazil from the machinations of of
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: the gangsters who pretend to be the government in the
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: United States of America and their allies in Brazil, like
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: the Bolsonaros.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Huge elections are taking place this Sunday, October 25th. In
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: the first round on October 4th, far-right senator and presidential
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: candidate Flavio Bolsonaro came in two points ahead of President
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro is the son of
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: the former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, a close ally of U.S.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: President Donald Trump. Remember, Jair Bolsonaro is currently under house
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: arrest for attempting to carry out a coup to hold
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: on to power after he lost the 2022 vote. Flavio
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Bolsonaro's victory in the first round earlier this month was
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: a shock for much of the country. Lula led almost
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: all the polls ahead of the election. His supporters were despondent.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: And then this happened. The left woke up in Brazil.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: That is a student march in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: the evening after the vote. The images filled people's feeds.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Hope spread like wildfire.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: Lula!
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Lula!
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: This is just one meeting I attended in Florianopolis a
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: couple of days after the election. That is the capital
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: of Santa Catarina, one of the most conservative states in
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: the country. They expected a couple of hundred people. Thousands
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: turned out. An impromptu march stretched for blocks into the
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: city's downtown. I spoke with one woman in the march.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Her name is Luana Ribeiro. She told me, we're making
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: part of history, taking to the streets once again to
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: defend the minimum rights that we have achieved and to
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: ensure that our country doesn't return to 1964 again, she
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: told me. 1964 was the year of the Brazilian coup
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: that sank the country into a military dictatorship that would
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: last for 21 years. People on the streets in recent
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: weeks say they are fighting for the country's very democracy.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: President Lula told people that he was getting to work.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Bolsonaro supporters had better get ready, he said, because we
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: are going to defeat you. Abstention in the first round
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: was the highest the country had seen in nearly 30 years.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Now the campaign was on to win over the undecided
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and the more than 30 million people who didn't vote.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Students led the way. Marches and rallies spilled over the country,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the likes of which Brazil has not seen in a
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: long time. Organizing in cities and neighborhoods, pamphleting, talking to
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: their neighbors, getting out the vote. Record-breaking rallies have taken
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: place in cities across Brazil. More than a million people
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: marched alongside President Lula down Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: And people have been organizing online as well. But it
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: has not been easy. Big Tech, and in particular Meta,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, have been
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: actively helping to lift Bolsonaro's presence online over that of
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: President Lula. Meta temporarily suspended Lula's campaign page on Facebook.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: It blocked more than a thousand pro-Lula accounts and allowed
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: its algorithm to benefit Bolsonaro while hindering Lula's campaign. Meta
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: admits that there has not been parity in its treatment
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: of the candidates, but it accuses mechanical glitches, Meanwhile, a Meta.ai
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: chatbot admitted to one graduate student that, quote, Meta indeed
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: has a clear political and economic interest in the election
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: of Flavio Bolsonaro.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: I want to talk about something important today.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a close political ally of U.S.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: President Donald Trump. Flavio Bolsonaro has promised that if he
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: is elected, he will join Trump's counter-cartel coalition and open
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: up Brazil's rare earth minerals to the United States. That
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: is something that big tech companies are interested in because
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: those minerals are necessary for their hardware, AI, and data centers.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: The UN criticized Meta this week and called on the
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: platform not to interfere in Brazil's democratic process. UN special
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: rapporteurs wrote in a statement, digital platforms should not become
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: unaccountable gatekeepers of political debate, nor should their systems be
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: vulnerable to undue influence from political actors. Brazilians have protested
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: at MEDA's headquarters in Sao Paulo, and they've turned to
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: creativity to try and break the bubble of the algorithm
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: and spread their message to precious undecided voters who can
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: make or break this election. MEDA and its secret algorithm
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: have become the latest tool of U.S. intervention in Latin America.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: It is not a branch of the U.S. government, but
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: it's working in tandem. A former Meta Brazil worker told
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: journalist Laís Gouveia earlier this month that ahead of the election,
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Meta laid off a team of human moderators who reviewed content.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: The system was switched to AI. The person said, quote,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: that means decisions are now coming from a single automated command,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: possibly issued from the United States, designed to boost certain
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: content while burying the rest. We do not know what
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: the meta algorithm is. Meta won't disclose it, but we
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: can see what it's doing and we can connect the dots.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Joao Ferres Jr. is a political scientist at Rio de
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Janeiro State University.
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: If you see that in general, the guys who own
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: the companies, the CEOs and stuff, show external signs of
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: being politically aligned with extreme right in the United States
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: with Trump, right? So... if you know that they don't
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: divulge the way they conduct their business, and on the
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: other tip, you get the results. They're very imbalanced, as
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: we've seen here, right? You have enough reasons to at
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: least suspect them, right? To suspect they're doing something.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: They are clearly doing something. They're attempting to influence public
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: opinion ahead of Brazil's elections and thereby influence the outcome
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: of the vote. That and much, much more in a minute.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: This is Under the Shadow, an investigative narrative podcast series
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: that looks at the role of the United States abroad
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: in the past and the very present. This podcast is
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: a co-production in partnership with The Real News and NACLA.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Michael Fox, longtime radio reporter, editor, journalist,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: the producer and host of the podcast Brazil on Fire,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Stories of Resistance and the Battle for Free Speech. I've
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: spent the better part of the last 20 years in
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Latin America. I've seen firsthand the role of the U.S.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: government abroad. And most often, sadly, it is not for
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: the better. Invasions, coups, sanctions, support for authoritarian regimes. Politically
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: and economically, the United States has cast a long shadow
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: over Latin America for the past 200 years. It still does.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: This is season two of Under the Shadow, Trump's Attack,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: episode 16, Meta and the Brazilian elections. OK, so today, folks,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: I'm going to do things a little differently. I'm going
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: to bring in a friend and fellow journalist to discuss
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: where we are right now, what's at stake, and in particular,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: to look at the role that Meta is playing ahead
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: of the second round of the Brazilian elections on Sunday.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: This is something he and I have been paying particular
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: attention to in recent weeks. His name is Brian Meir.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: He has a master's degree from Loyola University Chicago and
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: the University of London. He's lived in Brazil for more
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: than 30 years, and he co-hosts a weekly Portuguese-language web
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: TV program called Globalistas on Brazil 247. He's a correspondent
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: for Telesur English, and he works with me as an
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: editor of Pan American Dispatch, which we launched ahead of
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: the Brazilian vote.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: All right, we're recording.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Brian, thank you so much for joining me today.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: This is fantastic.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate it. And thank you so much for
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: all of your work, always ongoing. These are insane times.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: So Brian, I want this to be, you know, I
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: kind of mentioned, I'm hoping that this can be kind
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: of a conversation about what's happening right now. We are
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: a few days out from the vote and just, I'm
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: hoping to like map this out for for a U.S.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: audience and for a podcast that is particularly focused on U.S.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: intervention in Latin America, right? And there's so many layers
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: that you and I have been working on for the
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: last month or more. And folks who are listening to this,
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: if you don't already subscribe and know Pan American Dispatch,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: please check it out because we've been doing it around
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: the clock for the last month. And we'll be covering
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: the elections around the clock and Uh, and, and we're
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: just translating tons of articles and I think it's really, um,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: an important site for news and analysis of exactly what's
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: happening on the ground right now, uh, in Brazil. But, um, Brian,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: like if, like if we're taking like the 10,000 foot view,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: where do you see things right now?
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Well, um, we're in a crisis right of democracy in Brazil.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: This is the most complicated election since the return to
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: democracy because we have the son of a man who's
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: in jail along with 28 cronies of his for attempting
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: to implement a military coup. A man who was a
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: former operative during the military dictatorship. He was a captain
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: in the army. We have his son running under the
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: promise to immediately pardon his father and give him a
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: high-ranking job in the government, essentially turning control of the
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: government to his father if he's elected, which represents the
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: biggest threat to democracy since the return, since the end
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: of the dictatorship. Because what we're really talking about is
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: a state of exception. It's also a very big risk
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: for the Amazon rainforest. as Jerry Bolsonaro is present, slashed
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the budgets, dismantled all of the environmental protection agencies, including
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the satellite fire monitoring system, the universities that study, the
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: departments that are studying deforestation just on a vast scale,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: and gave constant dog whistles to loggers and soy plantation
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: workers farmers and ranchers that they could cut down whatever
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: they wanted. And it's a threat for sovereignty because we
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: have a candidate for the first time in Brazilian history
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: who's promising to turn over control of his transition team
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: to the Trump administration if he's elected, and also to
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: provide monopolistic access to those rare earths at the expense
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: of all the other countries that were interested, resulting in
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the second largest reserves of rare earth minerals in the world.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And also it would be the last country, one of
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the last countries in the Americas, and the largest country
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: in the Americas that will cease to be governed by
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: a leftist political party. So on various different levels it's complicated.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: And one of the reasons, the only reason this election
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: is even close, because there's always been, I've been living
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: in Brazil for over 30 years, there's always been a
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: percentage of the population that has fascist sympathies, far-right sympathies.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: When I say fascist sympathies, I mean literal fascist sympathies.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: It's not like calling an American politician a fascist or something.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I'm saying that Brazil has a tradition of fascism that
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: was manifest during the dictatorship. The reason that the election
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: is close is because of the Silicon Valley tech fascists
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and political operatives like Steve Bannon, who have been for
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: years working with the Bolsonaros to use the same kinds
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: of dirty tricks that Cambridge Analytica did to push through
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Brexit in the UK, the same kind of tricks that
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: were used to elect Trump and propel all of these
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: other far-right parties into power around the world. which is,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: you know, like illegal data phishing or data access, purchasing
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: data access from companies and micro-targeting different demographics with emotional
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: appeals and bringing people down rabbit holes on social media
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: with conspiracy theories and whatnot, to the point where a
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: large percentage of the population is just scared and confused.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And this is why the election is close. The first round,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: some people expected Lula to win in the first round.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Some people expected Flavio Bolsonaro to win in the first round.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: You needed to get 50% of the vote plus one
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: to win Brazil's election in the first round because there
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: are multiple candidates. Brazil has a multi-party system. There's 29
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: political parties. Some people were expecting Lula to take it.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Some were expecting Bolsonaro to take it. The polls put
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Lula two points ahead. three points ahead. Some of them
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: had it tied. And in the end, Flavio Bolsonaro won
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: the first round by 1.8%, which sent out a big
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: warning to different sectors of the population that might not
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: normally support a government as left-wing as the Lula administration,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: who are worried about the state of democracy in Brazil
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and also worried about sovereignty. So, There's been momentum growing
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: on the streets. A few days after the October 4th
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: first round election, Flavio Bolsonaro was pulling six points in
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the lead, and that lead has evaporated now, with most
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: polls showing that they're tied. Some showing Lula a little
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: bit in front, some showing Bolsonaro a little bit in front.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: The far right has a tradition of outperforming polls Uh,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: so it's basically up in the air right now with
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: only a few days left until the election.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: I think what's interesting and important about right now, like
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: ahead of the first round vote, there was a lot
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: of discussion about kind of the, the role in the
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: United States and the connection between the United States and
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Flavia Bolsonaro in the lead up going back months beforehand.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: And I, and I dug into a lot of that
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: stuff on, on this podcast. What's interesting now is how
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: much the conversation is really about meta and about online manipulation,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: the algorithms. And I think, and that's something I really
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: want to talk about right now. We have been covering
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: it constantly, like every day, numerous articles, because it is
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: a terrifying reality when you have a Silicon Valley company
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: that is owned clearly by Mark Zuckerberg, that controls Facebook.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Instagram and WhatsApp and is very close friends with US
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: President Donald Trump and is clearly trying to play politics
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: in this election against Lula and his campaign. Brian, dive
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: into where you see things with Meta right now. How
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: are they playing politics, biased in this election? What have
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: we seen?
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, one of the reasons I enjoy being on
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: podcasts is because Normally, news treats issues as almost binary things.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: So I want to avoid suggesting that it's not the
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Trump administration. It's not the U.S. media in general. And
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: it's just meta. Because there's a long history of, for example,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk. meddling in Brazilian politics. And Donald Trump has
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: made massive tariffs on Brazil. And it's basically extorting the population,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: doing the same thing that the Biden administration did in
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: 2024 in Venezuela, saying, if you vote for my guy,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I will remove these punishments on you. Your economy will improve.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I'll remove the punishments. Just like with Argentina in the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: midterm election, Trump said, well, I'm only going to bail
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: out your economy if you vote for Malay's party in
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the midterms. They maintain control of parliament. So there's that
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: going on. Above and beyond that, though, you have meta,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: you know? So there is a operative, a political operative,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: who is in jail right now named Fernando Seremedo, who
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: was arrested for attempting to murder his pregnant ex-girlfriend, who's
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: a lawyer in Bolivia recently. She's now out of the hospital.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: She miraculously survived multiple gunshot wounds and she's out of
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the hospital and she's recovering and she's talking to the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: media about what her husband was involved in. Now, we
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: already knew that he was Millet's big data manipulation guy,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: big social media manipulation, bot farm merchant, controlling huge bot
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: farms around Latin America. He was involved in influencing the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Honduran elections, Peruvian, Colombian, and Argentinian elections, and that he
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: had close ties to both U.S. intelligence agencies and the
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro family. But what she told Channel 14 in Mexico
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: last week is that Fernando Seremedo and Flavio Bolsonaro's brother Eduardo,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: who is the CPAC representative for South America, visited META
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: headquarters in the U.S. and made a deal for the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: company to support Flavio Bolsonaro through algorithmic manipulation and to
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: bury the reach of Lula during these elections. And so
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: there's been a series of events that have shown that
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: this is actually what they're doing. First, a Brazilian journalist
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: named Laís Gouveia spoke to someone inside Meta Corporation in
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Brazil who told her that right before election season started,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Meta laid off most of its fact checkers. and replaced
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: them with an AI fact-checking system that they believe was
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: controlled from the US, which in itself is a crime
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: in Brazil. Then both Amnesty International and the US NGO
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Echo ran tests with meta platforms like Instagram and Facebook
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: to see if they could break Brazilian election law by
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: paying for advertising political ads from outside of Brazil. That
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: in itself is a crime. But adding to that crime,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the additional crimes of disinformation of the Brazilian electoral system,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: disinformation about the integrity of the electoral voting system, disinformation
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: about the date of the election. And they paid for
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: these ads and scheduled for them to run at a
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: certain time and date so that they could cancel them
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: if they were approved. In the case of Amnesty International,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: it was like from the UK, it was like 12
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of the 20 ads that they tried to run made
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: it straight through fact-checking. And the aid that were rejected,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: they weren't rejected because of the disinformation or the location.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: They were rejected for like bureaucratic issues or something. They
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: weren't flagged as being fake content or something. And in
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the case of Echo, it was almost... There's something like
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: 17 out of 20 made it through. So they proved
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: that Meta was breaking the law, allowing foreigners to take
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: out campaign ads in Brazil. Then people started observing Meta's
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: AI that runs through its WhatsApp social media chatbot. And
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the AI was refusing to design logos for Lula, campaign logos,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: or slogans or T-shirts or anything related to Lula, which
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: was refused. It said, well, I can't do that. But
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: then it was designing them perfectly normally for Flavio Bolsonaro,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: and people began running all kinds of tests. One example
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: of something that was flagged by Lula's campaign lawyers, his
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: campaign team lawyers, was that one of the big accounts
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: in social media supporting Lula is called Lula's Troops. And
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: so when you search for Lula's Troops, in Meta AI,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: it gives you a link to a site called Flavio's Troops.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Or if you search for it in Instagram, I'm sorry,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: if you look for it in Instagram, it would link
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: you to Flavio's Troops. And if you try to make
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: a hashtag with Lula, the first thing would come up
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: would be hashtag Lula the thief. Whereas the hashtags with
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: anything related to a negative portrayal of Flavio would only
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: come in at the 18th or 19th hashtag that they
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: would suggest when you're trying to build a hashtag with
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Flavio Bolsonaro. And then on October 9th, Lula's Instagram account
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: was simply blocked from taking any kind of ads out
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: for 24 hours. Well, Flavio's was running perfectly normally, you know,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: and Flavio's allies were running propaganda for him, like Nicolas
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Bejera was running perfectly normally. So then, once the page
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: was re-established, 24 hours later, MEDE issued this statement, very
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: reminiscent of what they said, what Zuckerberg said when the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Cambridge Analytica scandal surfaced, saying, oh, I'm sorry, it was
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: a technical glitch. We're going to take measures to make
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: sure that something like this doesn't happen again. So yesterday,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Folha do São Paulo, Brazil's largest newspaper, they uncovered conversations,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: internal conversations from colleagues workers in Meta headquarters in Brazil,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: in which they acknowledge that they had been artificially promoting,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: extending the reach of the Flavio Bolsonaro posts and limiting
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the reach of the Lula posts. And they also, these
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: conversations also showed that the international system crash, but Meta
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: had given it as an excuse for Lula's ads being
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: taken offline for 24 hours, had actually happened on October 7th.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: I said October 7th, but this Lula's Page was taken
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: down October 9th. The technical glitch that they used as
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: an excuse for taking down Lula's Page had happened for
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: five hours on October 7th, and Lula's Page was taken
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: down for 24 hours on October 9th, after they had
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: fixed the supposed glitch. So these things, last Friday, the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Superior Electoral Court issued an order for Lula's Page a
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: method to provide more transparency on how it's using its
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: algorithms and to immediately cease accepting money from third parties
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: to propel propaganda for Flavio Bolsonaro and to reestablish equality
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: in algorithm reach between the two candidates, proportionate to their
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: number of users and whatever. And on Monday, it was
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: proven that they hadn't obeyed the court order. And so today, Tuesday,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Lula's campaign team filed a complaint with the Superior Electoral
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Court to cancel the presidential ticket of Flavio Bolsonaro because
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: of illegal algorithmic manipulation. Remembering that the first round was
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: very close. I'm not saying, nobody is suggesting that the
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: reason everyone voted for Flavio Bolsonaro was because of algorithmic
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: manipulation of meta. But it could certainly make a two-
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: to three-point difference, a four-point difference in an election. And
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: that's what people are worried about. Will Flavio's candidacy be canceled?
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Probably not. But at least it's on record. And the
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: hope now is that since the scandal started broken, Lula's
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: reach has grown on social media and a lot of
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: activists are trying to break the shadow banning using a
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: lot of different tactics that they're sharing with each other
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: and everything. But the real risk is that on election day,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: we see that on the October 4th election day, Lula
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and Flavio Bolsonaro's reach was about equal up until about
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: 12 hours before the polling stations opened. At that point,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: suddenly Flavio had seven times more reach than Lula. And
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: it maintained that way all through election day. So the
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: risk is that foreign media starts doing these stories about
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: how finally the Brazilian leftists have woken up and figured
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: out how to use social media. And they've evened out
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the playing field on this imaginary democratic commons, which is
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: these fascist corporation controlled social media platforms, right? These kinds
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: of stories are already circulating. And then on election day,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Zuckerberg can just turn off the Lula reach button again
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and really screw Brazil's democracy over and the Amazon rainforest
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: and everything else in this country.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Brian, there's this, there's that incredible table that this organization,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: it's a statistical organization actually, but they put it together,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: this graph of what the reach is. looked like of
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: the Flavio campaign and the Lula campaign in like the
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: month ahead of times. And this just goes like, it
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: was just this incredible, this incredible image of first, the
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Flavio campaign was consistently above the Lula campaign, right? Throughout
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: the campaigns itself. And then as soon as, just like
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: what you said, as soon as it gets, close to
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: the election, it just, you know, spikes and skyrockets. Flavio's
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: campaign just gets a ton, ton of reach. And not
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: just the 12 hours before, I think it was even
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: a couple of days before you can start to see
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: it climb and compared with Lula's. And it's just the
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: shocking thing. And I just want to underscore this fact
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: that these aren't conspiracy theories. You know, when we start
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: talking about part of the problem is the simple fact
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: that the algorithm, we cannot know it. It's proprietary. They
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: should share it. Meta should be sharing this. People should
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: know what's in it. But due to the fact that
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: it's actually hidden, it means that we can't know what
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: they're doing, but we can see the results. And I
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: think that's what we see in concrete. And there's been
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: all of these studies and reports and statistics. There are
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: different groups that are fighting really hard in recent weeks
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: and in recent months to try and get all the
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: statistics and see. In fact, there was one case where
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: they had seen more than 1,000 different pro-Lula accounts had
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: been messed with, taken offline, blocked, suspended. And I think
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: that it's really important to just underscore the fact that
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: this isn't like suppositions. This is concrete. This is fact.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: It is happening. Meta is actually playing politics. They are
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: messing with these elections, using the algorithm and using everything
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: they possibly can. I think what's fascinating at the same
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: time is how people have responded. You kind of mentioned
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: it briefly, what they call here in Brazil, fuda bolha, right?
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Get out of the bubble. Because what happens in the
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: world that we live in now in social media is
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: that if you love Lula, you're going to be seeing
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: all Lula content on Instagram. And if you love Bolsonaro,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: and if you love the far right, you're going to
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: be seeing all Bolsonaro content. What has been interesting is
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: that there has been Bolsonaro content that has been kind
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: of feeding into... to the Lula feed just in the
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: last couple of days and things are constantly changing. But
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: what's been fascinating is to see how people have been
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: trying to use different tactics to break out of that bubble,
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: use the images and the color green and yellow, which
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: are the colors of Brazil and which Bolsonaro has embraced
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: as his colors. And so using those colors, doing memes,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: using the same memes, like there was one case where
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: they said, you know, take a pro-Bolsonaro meme, but then
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: use AI to switch it around and make it pro-Lula.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: And so there's been just this fascinating creativity, I think,
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: by Brazilians in recent weeks to try and respond to
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: the shadow bans, respond to the bias by Meta in
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: these elections.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but more than the internet, you know, like, The
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Workers' Party historically has always dealt with a highly, highly
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: antagonistic press.
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Professional corporate-funded liars like Glenn Greenwald who go around pretending
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: that Brazil's mainstream media likes Lula, but it doesn't hold
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: up to any kind of even mildly systematic analysis. There's
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: a media watchdog group at State University of Rio de
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Janeiro called Manchester, which monitors all of the headlines about
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: candidates and politicians and governmental figures and ranks them as positive, negative,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: or neutral coverage. And so one thing that stands out
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: in my mind, I remember from when I was translating
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: the biography of Lula was that during 2017, the most
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: popular nightly news program in Brazil, Jornal Nacional, owned by
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: a global company, they aired so much negative coverage of
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Lula that it could have filled up an entire month
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: of one-hour nightly newscasts just saying negative things about Lula.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: And they didn't even allow his voice to appear on
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the network for 10 years at one point. Every time
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: they showed him, they would show him, but his voice wouldn't...
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: wouldn't appear and there'd be newscasters paraphrasing what he said
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: as he appeared on TV. And this is, we're talking
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: about two-time ex-presidents at the time. So the PT has
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: always had ways of dribbling around negative coverage in media
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: and even social media. And so a lot of the
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: mobilization work for the vote is happening offline right now.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: And you can see that in The smaller towns where,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: for example, on Sunday in a town called Paldalio in Pernambuco,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: population 52,000, over half of the population of the city,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: the town was on the street at a hula rally,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: and that was not organized over social media. That was
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: organized knocking on people's doors, old technology like a car
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: with a speaker driving slowly through the neighborhoods announcing the
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: time and place of the march and all this stuff,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: besides social media. I don't think, I personally don't believe
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: it's possible, although it's these examples of breaking out of
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: the bubble are admirable and whatever, these multinational corporations, Zionist, far-right,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: white supremacist corporations are powerful enough to cut those kinds
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: of activities off before election day. It's just this kind
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: of like glimmers, To me it kind of plays into
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: this glimmers of hope about the look the internet really
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: is a magic tool for democracy Look at how these
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: wonderful young Generation Z people are breaking out of the bubble.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I don't that's that's not the real fight. You know,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: there's no way Like you might be able to break
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: out of this bubble for six hours or something right
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: before their watchdogs cut it off Yeah, there's no way
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: that this can overcome the massive favoritism, the only way
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: to overcome the massive favoritism of meta is in the
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: court system and enforcing existing laws and regulations. There's no
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: private sector solution for this problem. They have to be
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: threatened with taking them down in Brazil, like the Brazilian
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: government took down X. If they really wanted free and
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: fair elections, they would turn off access to META and
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: X three days before the elections. And just so it'll
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: come back on on Monday.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Brian. And I think this is just to
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: underscore this point that as folks who are listening to
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: this podcast and folks who are following the news at
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: The Real News and elsewhere, Silicon Valley is very, very
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: much in the pockets of Donald Trump, and they have
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: been fighting against legislation and regulation around the world. But
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: particularly in Brazil, we even saw this just last year.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Brazilian Congress was working toward potentially regulating social media, and
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: the big tech companies sent I think there's 88 different
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: moments where they sent in lobbyists to lobby people in Brasilia.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: A third of those was by Meta. So they have
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: been playing games in Brazil and paying attention to Brazil
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: and definitely Elon Musk, you know, all of this. So
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: this is extremely important point, Brian, that there needs to
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: be regulation for big tech. And I think that question
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: of how people have responded to, in the streets in
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: recent weeks has been really, really powerful. And it hasn't
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: just been, oh, we're going to go out in March,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: but it's been, we're going to go to March. We
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: are going to talk to our neighbors. We're going to
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: pamphlet wherever we can. We're going to go to places
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: to try and get that 30 million people who abstained
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: from the elections, who did not vote. We need to
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: get them to vote. We need to encourage them to
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: vote for Lula.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Now, just to add to your point, I was
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: just giving a few examples of the illegal activity by
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Meta that's been going on to favor a candidate who's
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: basically threatening a break with the democratic rule of law
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and establishing a state of exception if he takes power.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Meta AI admits it itself. There's a grad student named
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Laura Morgado who started asking questions Meta's AI chatbot why
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Meta is backing Bolsonaro. And, you know, it answered, Trump
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: and the Bolsonaros are the global political shield for big
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: tech companies against the advance of European regulation and the
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Latin American left. In Meta AI chatbot's own words, you know,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: they explain exactly why they're doing this.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Totally. And this was so incredible because she posted it
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: on Instagram and then we made an article about it
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: for Pan American Dispatch. And folks, just so you know,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be adding in links to everything that
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: we're talking about today in, in the show notes. So
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: you can find almost everything that Brian's brought up are,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: are articles that we have also been either translating or
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: running and publishing. So this is all, um, so you
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: can have access to it all.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: So basically, basically my, the tangent I went off on
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: about meta was based on like seven. What we're doing
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: is we're identifying, um, the progressive news media outlets in
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Brazil's most interesting articles, articles we think would be most
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: interesting for a northern audience every day and translating them.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: And sometimes framing them with additional information that Brazilian readers
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: would take for granted but US readers might not know.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: So that whole sequence of things I said about Meta
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: We've got six or seven articles that have described everything
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: that I just said, basically, and others that mention things
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't even bring up.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Brian, I want to dive into the Superior Electoral Court,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Cassio Nunes, Andrea Mendonça. I think this is really important
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: to understanding this moment because just for listeners, I did
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: an episode a few months ago that was looking at
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Brazil's fight against disinformation in the past. And the Supreme
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Court was one of the main places, the Supreme Court
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: and the Supreme Electoral Court, remember the Supreme Electoral Court
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: is made up of members of the Supreme Court and
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: other institutions, Brazilian institutions. But basically the Supreme Court historically
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: in Brazil has been extremely important in pushing back against
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: the far right and against Bolsonaro, and particularly when he
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: was in power. That's, we saw you know, a very
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: big push in the last two elections from the Supreme
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Electoral Court, pushing back against fake news that was actual
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: fake news. I remember one moment there was, I remember
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: there was some fake news that like Haddaji had like,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: who was the presidential candidate in 2018 when Lula was
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: in jail, like he had gotten, he had a, they said, oh,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: look at these cars. Look at this huge car he has.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: And he lives in this mansion. It was all just ridiculous.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: But that was the type of fake news that they
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: were pushing back at the time. But at this point,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: things are very, very different. Brian, can you explain a
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: little bit about this?
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: OK, well, basically, the superior Brazil has very strict campaign
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: regulations and to oversee the elections, the voting. And enforcement
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: of these regulations, there's an electoral court system, and the
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: highest court in the system is the Superior Electoral Court.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: It has five justices, three of them come from the
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court on a rotating basis, and two come from
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: lower court, like the Superior Justice Court, which is another high-ranked,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: high-level court in Brazil. We're in a situation right now
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: where after eight years of international efforts supported even by
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: mainstream media outlets in the United States to delegitimize Brazil's judiciary,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: we're stuck with a superior electoral court that's not up
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: to the task of stopping meta right now. And the
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: other social media corporations that are trying to throw the
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: election for Bolsonaro. And to make things worse, because of
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the way that the system is rotating, Every two years
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: they change the president of the Superior Electoral Court and
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like in order that the justice was
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: nominated to the Supreme Court. So just by chance, by
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: random chance, the president of the Superior Electoral Court right
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: now is a man who was appointed by Jair Bolsonaro.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: So he's not doing anything to try to slow down
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: the disinformation being spread to support the Bolsonaro campaign.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Well, not just that, but he and the vice president,
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Andrei Mendonca, was also appointed by Jair Bolsonaro. And in fact,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: they've been using their place in the court to stop
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: and to block accounts in favor of Lula and to
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: pull down a bunch of legitimate information that's not fake
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: news that has been published and spread and posted online.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: They've been actually using their place not just to battle
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: fake news, but actually to support the candidacy of Flavio Bolsonaro.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and before, just to preemptively prepare ourselves for being
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: accused of both sides in the issue, which is the
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: way that Greenwald is gaslighting everyone on social media right
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: now who's complaining about censorship, an example of something that
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: was censored, you know, it was taken off the air
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: by Nunes Marquez, Casio Nunes Marquez, president of the Superior
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Electoral Court, was a labor union posting information about how
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: the economic policies of the two candidates would affect their
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: labor sector, right? Specifically, how the budget cuts being promised
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: by Flavio Bolsonaro, massive, you know, Javier Millet-style shock doctrine
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: budget cuts would affect their labor sector with actual statistics,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: you know, information from economists and whatever, that was taken
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: off the air. When the Justice Department under Lula tried
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: to pull down accounts that were violating Brazilian law by
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: inciting support for Nazism, neo-Nazism, that's when people like Greenwald,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson started crying censorship and it made it into
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: the New York Times. But I didn't see these guys
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: complaining about unions being pulled off the air for legitimately
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: expressing actual stats and projections about what would happen if
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: someone was elected president.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really concerning moment. And it's made more
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: concerning by the fact that depending on who wins this election,
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: there are four seats that will be open today. on
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. So the Brazilian Supreme Court is 11
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: seats on the Brazilian Supreme Court. Two of them right
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: now were appointed by Jair Bolsonaro during his term. Four
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: of the seats are coming up for grabs over the
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: next four years. It's a very similar situation where we
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: were like just before Trump's first term. So if Flavio
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Bolsonaro wins this election, it's very likely that he will
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: be able to appoint four new members of the Supreme Court.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: The Supreme Court will then become majority for the Bolsonaros.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: And if you look at what the Supreme Court has
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: meant historically in Brazil over the last decade as kind
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: of the main bastion of the battle to push back
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: on the undemocratic push, the authoritarian push by Bolsonaro, it
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: is now going to be in the hands of the
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Bolsonaro family in the same way that Trump now controls
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court in the United States.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: If the Supreme Court continues, because... There's a good chance
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: that if Jair Bolsonaro gets power back, they'll just implement
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: a military coup. That's what he was trying to do
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: last time around, you know, when he was stopped.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Do you think that they would take it to that level, Brian?
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: This is what he's been promising to do for his
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: entire political career. Jair Bolsonaro, Flavio's dad, for his entire career,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: he's been promising to bring back a military dictatorship.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: Hmm.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: These are scary moments. What else do you think is important, Brian?
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: And I want to talk a little bit about hope.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: What's important is that the huge wave of support for
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Lula on the streets, led by young people, shows that
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: even if Flavio Bolsonaro is elected, it's not going to
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: be that easy for him. Remember, they had these Jared
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro tried to start charging tuition at public universities, and
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: the students, the National Students' Unions, historically connected with the
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Brazilian Communist Party, and the Teachers' Unions joined together to
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: put over a million people on the streets in Sao
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Paulo on two different occasions, with smaller but still very
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: large protests in hundreds of thousands of cities across the country,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and blocked Bolsonaro from doing that. unable to block Bolsonaro
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: from other things, raising the retirement age. However, I get
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of hope from talking to people at the
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: rallies for Lula, and it's a huge percentage of the population.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: It's the majority of the population. The vote's being manipulated, whatever.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: But what we're talking about is, even if Flavio Bolsonaro
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: wins by 1%, that still means that 74 million people
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: in this country are leftists who support the left, and
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: who are going to keep fighting. And you know what?
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Brazilians have a lot more experience operating under authoritarian regimes
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: than Americans do, in a sense. So young people are
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: talking to old people now. And I think that I personally,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not moving out of here. If Flavio takes power,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not afraid. I know I'll be okay because there
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: are so many other people supporting each other to fight
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: these guys.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: And what you said about the numbers in the streets
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: is just, it is really incredible. You've seen, there was
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: over a million people that were marching in Sao Paulo
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: just about a week ago. In many of these cities,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: we've seen some of the largest marches in a very
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: long time. The largest student electoral march ever. During the
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: election period here in Florianopolis, I mean, it's been incredible
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: and the amount of excitement and the amount of hope
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: that people have. And like Brian said at the very beginning,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: that has dropped the numbers for Florianopolis. Bolsonaro. Like when,
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: you know, he was maybe six points ahead of Lula
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: just a few weeks ago following the first round vote.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: And now that's decreased essentially to a tie, right?
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: And also it's come out, Flavio's under investigation for money
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: laundering activities. You know, he had some problems in the debate.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: There's more and more dirt coming out in the mainstream media.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: So the tide seems to be turning right now. You know,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: who knows what will happen if Zuckerberg just turns off
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: the Lula buttons on election day. But that's why the
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: street mobilization is so important. Because it can bypass having
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: to rely on Silicon Valley to communicate with each other.
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: I just want to underscore just part of why this
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: election is so important right now is clearly the fact
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: that for Brazil's place in Latin America, what it represents
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: is kind of this final bastion that hasn't fallen to
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Trump and his people. I mean, one of the big
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: things that, like I've talked about in this podcast, one
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: of the big things that Flavio has mentioned many times
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: is that the minute if he is elected, the minute
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: he comes into power, he's joining Trump's shield of the Americas, right?
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: And he's totally on board with just handing over the
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: keys of Brazil to the White House and to more
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: than the White House, to the Trump administration. But I
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: think what's so important is clearly what Brazil represents in
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Latin America at this moment. But also the games that
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: Meta is playing, this is not the only place it's happening.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: We saw in the United States just in the last
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: couple of days, the No Kings account was taken offline.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: A bunch of people and accounts supporting the No Kings
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: demonstration in the United States in recent days. have been
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: taken offline or blocked or temporarily blocked. So this is,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: we literally, our entire media sphere is controlled by a
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: small number of very big outlets and they will not
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: tell us how they're controlling it. They are not sharing
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: that information. And although they say that they're being neutral,
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: that's just, it's not a reality. And we need to
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: understand that And I think we need to look at
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Brazil and how people are trying to respond in Brazil
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: to understand when these things are happening elsewhere. Because this
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: isn't going away. It's only going to increase. It's only
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: going to grow. The amount that people rely on social
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: media for their news and information is only going to increase.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: And these companies are getting more and more powerful. And
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: they're ever more in the pockets of Donald Trump. This
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: is a context that I think we really need to understand. Brian,
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: thank you so much, man. I really, really appreciate it.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: This was fantastic. Always great chatting with you.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. And I will see you in
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Sao Paulo on Sunday, covering the elections.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: That's right. I will see you in Sao Paulo. And
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: we will see all the rest of you online at Paramericandispatch.org.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: Hi, folks.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening. That is all for
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: this episode of Under the Shadow. The second round vote
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: of the Brazilian elections is this Sunday, October 25th. Please
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: follow and subscribe to Pan American Dispatch for everything on
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: the elections. We'll be doing live coverage of the vote
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: throughout the weekend. Much of the reporting for this episode
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: was based on stories that we translated and published with
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: Pan American Dispatch. I've added links in the show notes,
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: or you can read and subscribe to the Substack at panamericandispatch.org.
• 53:01
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• 53:06
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• 53:09
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• 53:10
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• 53:15
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• 53:17
  Speaker 2: Trump's onslaught, both on communities within the United States and abroad...
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: please check out The Real News and NACLA. Both of
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: them are publishing daily, indispensable reporting. The theme music is
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: by my band Monte Perdido. You can find us on
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Spotify or wherever you stream music. This closing song playing
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: right now is off our 2024 album Ofrenda. I hope
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: you check it out. Under the Shadow is a co-production
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: of The Real News and NACLA. It's produced in partnership
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: with Global Exchange. This episode was written, researched, reported, and
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: produced by me, Michael Foxx, Thanks so much to Brian
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: Muir for joining me on today's show. You can check
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: out his sub stack. It's called De-Linking Brazil. Thank you
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: so much for listening. See you next time.