It’s not just WhatsApp: Brazil’s far-right grows on Gab

The consensus is that the Brazilian 2018 election was run by social media. The frontrunner — and probable winner — Jair Bolsonaro has campaigned from a hospital bed and has refused to take part in any debate with adversary Fernando Haddad, of the Workers’ Party. Not even after the first round of vote, when Brazilians granted Mr. Bolsonaro 46 percent of the votes, did the far-right politician address the media as regular candidates do. Instead, he chose to broadcast a live video on social media.

However, we could be missing out on exactly which social media platforms are the most important to this election’s outcome. Forget Facebook or Twitter. Things run wild on WhatsApp Messenger and Gab, a social network little-known in Brazil, where hate speech thrives and radicalism is fueled away from the eyes of the media and the public. In just two years, Gab has become a haven for U.S. white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

Back in August, Microsoft threatened to pull the plug and stop hosting the social network altogether, due to the sheer amount of anti-Semitic posts. Last year, Google banned the app from the Play Store, also for hate speech. Gab, however, remains accessible via its website on desktop and on mobile devices.

A game-changer

While Twitter and Facebook have some rules of use, Gab offers very loose guidelines, calling itself “a social network that champions free speech, individual liberty, and...