Analysis: As Brazil cracks down on fake news, Bolsonaro’s new move is straight out of Trump’s playbook
Updated
At the beginning of his year, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro vowed that his government would crack down on fake political news and misinformation.
The government has now decided to crack down on what it sees as “further manipulation of facts and opinion” in the media by the opposition.
The new ruling, announced this week, will see the government introduce new rules on the use of “fake news” – a concept that has become a hotbed of controversy in recent months.
But it comes at a delicate time for the country: Brazil is scheduled to hold local and federal elections in November and Bolsonaro is running for re-election.
What is fake news?
The concept of fake news can be difficult to define.
One definition, from the British media company Buzzfeed, characterises a post as “fake news” when:
“The content is presented without a source and/or a valid link (which is why it looks fake) […] [when] the headline overstates or downplays the severity of the news, or the story itself is so outrageous that it can be considered fake news in and of itself.”
Another definition from the American news service ABC News describes a post as “fake news” when it is “presented as if it were real, even if it has been edited for a particular purpose.”
But there is a problem with the two definitions; while the first can be useful in identifying “fake” content, the second is unhelpful in finding out who is writing it.
“The problem with the above two definitions is that they don’t actually identify the people who are creating the fake stories, or the fact that fake stories are being created,” Ben Miller, staff writer at BuzzFeed News, wrote when discussing the two definitions.
The problem of creating fake news. The ABC News definition focuses on the fake news element, with content presented as if it were real, even if it has been edited for a particular purpose. The Buzzfeed definition focuses on the fake news element, with content presented as if it were real, even when it’s made up.
In other words, both the BBC and BuzzFeed will label a story as fake news, and then focus on the fake news element,
