Politicians from Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Pará spread disinformation the most

Ana Pastana – From Cenarium Magazine

CUIABÁ (MT) – Senator Plínio Valério (PSDB-AM) and federal lawmakers Fausto Jr. (União Brasil-AM), Delegado Caveira (PL-PA), Amália Barros (PL-MT) – who recently died -, Eder Mauro (PL-PA), and Abilio Brunini (PL-MT) are named by a survey as the politicians who have spread the most disinformation in the Amazon.

The survey comes from the Fake Free Amazon project, coordinated by Intervozes and 14 other Amazonian organizations. For the survey, 32 public figures were mapped in 2023, with the aim of identifying which types of disinformation are disseminated and how this ecosystem is circulated and financed in the states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso and Pará.

Among the politicians monitored, 28 of them published 192 posts with misinformation and invested R$ 13,000 of public funds in 68 ads with a socio-environmental theme that contained disinformation. The result on social media was more than 4.5 million interactions with the posts.

The ranking of the six politicians who most disseminated disinformation, financed this content and carried out attacks or disseminated hate speech was based on the results of the posts and public interactions.

Disinformation: bases for draft legislation and political strategy

The report shows that the disinformation propagated by politicians also manifests itself as the basis for legislation. One such example is Bill 4.183/23, presented in September by federal deputy Coronel Assis (PL/MT), which seeks to persecute the Landless People’s Movement (MST), with the obligation to create a CNPJ for eventual liability.

With the municipal elections in 2024, the use of disinformation could be seen as a political strategy for the elections. Politicians affiliated to the Liberal Party in states in the Legal Amazon, identified by the survey as disseminators of false information, are pre-candidates for the mayoralty.

Federal lawmaker Abilio Brunini (PL/MT) is a pre-candidate for mayor of Cuiabá. Colonel Menezes (PL/AM) has also announced that he will be a pre-candidate for the party in Manaus. And Eder Mauro (PL/PA) has put himself forward as a pre-candidate in Belém.

Check out the full survey:

CENARIUM contacted the parliamentarians mentioned in the report to ask them to comment on the results of the report, but by the time this article was published, only Senator Plínio Valério had responded, saying that the organizers of the survey were providing a “service” to those who “sponsor” them and that the senator was providing a service to those who elected him. “These people believe they know more about the Amazon than I do,” the senator criticized.

Read more: With 317 votes in favor, Congress upholds Bolsonaro’s veto allowing fake news

Edited by Aldizangela Brito
Translated by Bruno Sena