On Sunday, Brazilian supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the presidential palace, the country’s seat of Congress, and various other federal buildings. The scenes, which echoed the Jan. 6 riot in the United States Capitol almost exactly two years ago, shared a similar motivation: claims of a stolen election.
Since Bolsonaro’s October loss to former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s right-wing factions have taken a leaf out of Donald Trump’s playbook and baselessly claimed foul play and election fraud. Those claims have proliferated on social media platforms like Twitter, where Elon Musk’s acquisition may have added fuel to the fire that burned over into a riot in Brasilia.
Following the completion of the purchase, Musk fired huge swaths of both Twitter’s domestic and international staff — including, as reported by The Washington Post, the majority of the company’s Brazilian employees. According to the Post, any and all employees charged with moderating content for incitement of violence and misinformation had been fired by early November, leaving behind only a handful of salespeople. The takeover has since coincided with an engagement boom for Brazilian right-wing accounts on the platform.
Bolsonaro has long been a fan of Musk. In May of last year, he appeared next to Musk at a meeting touting a partnership between Brazil’s government and Starlink, calling the Tesla founder’s potential takeover of Twitter “breath of hope” from a “legend of...
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