Here is an interesting article posted by Coda. An excerpt
In one of the countless violent videos spreading rapidly among Brazil’s social networks, a right-wing radical — with his face covered by a Brazilian flag — holds up what looks like the original copy of the country’s 1988 Constitution. Hundreds of people watch, and dozens film, as he flips through the pages of the recently acquired trophy, perhaps unaware that it’s just a copy, a fake. But the image is symbolic of the violent uprising in many ways: it spreads disinformation and it undermines a pact that ended 21 years of dictatorship. And it is being used to foment further attacks on Brazilian democracy.
In the months leading up to the country’s presidential election in October — in which, in a close runoff, Lula da Silva from the leftist Worker’s Party defeated the right-wing incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro — social networks were flooded with disinformation, calls in Portuguese to “Stop the Steal” and Bolsonaro’s insistence that the elections would be rigged.
On January 8, a week after Lula began his third term as Brazil’s president, followers of Bolsonaro took the country’s capital by storm. Frustrated right-wing radicals armed with weapons, flags, mobile phones and conspiracy theories occupied and destroyed the three pillars of the federal government in Brasília: the Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace. They not only left a trail of destruction but also stole documents and hard drives, and destroyed artworks and infrastructure.
Read the full article here.
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