Mobs of rioters who stormed Brazil's seats of power raised conspiracy-laden slogans against voting machines, a prime target of disinformation campaigns seeking to undermine trust in electoral systems around the world.
Far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro's supporters, who invaded the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court in the capital Brasilia on Sunday, demanded access to the "source code" of electronic voting machines.
That slogan effectively questioned the reliability of voting equipment after a bitterly contested election that saw Bolsonaro defeated by his leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The right-wing rage was the latest illustration of the impact of disinformation campaigns that have sought to cast doubt on voting machines from the United States to France, Bulgaria and the Philippines.
"This scenario of rioting and insurrection over baseless theories fueled by technology opacity are very dangerous for the stability of global democracies," Gregory Miller, the co-founder of the nonpartisan nonprofit OSET Institute, told AFP.
Brazil has used voting machines in its elections since 1996, but they only recently became mired in controversy, with Bolsonaro leading allegations that they were plagued by fraud.
No major security flaw has ever been detected, with political parties, the judiciary and the military allowed to inspect the source code and tests conducted by technology experts to protect against hacking.
The Brazilian riots bore chilling...
Federal authorities say a California vascular practice and its physician agree to pay more than $6.73 million to resolve allegations that unnecessary interventional procedures were billed to Medic...