This week: How candidates use social media communities to manufacture engagement. The success of open banking in Brazil. And more leaks of PIX data.
The political use of Facebook groups
The so-called “third way” has so far failed to break the political dichotomy of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and President Jair Bolsonaro — who consistently poll first and second, respectively. Former judge Sergio Moro, who is struggling to reach the double digits, hopes that an intense social media strategy will help him get over the hump.
- Mr. Moro has obtained a strong ally: the libertarian Free Brazil Movement (MBL), a right-wing group with a deep social media presence.
- The guerilla strategy of Moro supporters has included co-opting popular and existing Facebook groups and changing their names to pro-Moro messages.
Say what? Groups with over 50,000 members created for people to share content on house rentals or TV series ‘The Good Doctor” were recently rebranded as pro-Moro communities.
- Since the change, a flood of posts attacking Lula and Mr. Bolsonaro began to appear.
Why it matters. Since 2017, Facebook has shifted its emphasis away from newsfeeds and toward groups — which are designed to promote engagement. And Facebook is the third-most used social media platform in Brazil, with over 130 million users — 79 percent of whom use it at least once a day.
Will it work? While Mr. Bolsonaro made his name nationally through social media, the path to popularity is less straightforward for Mr. Moro. “He is already well-known by the electorate, and most people have already formed their opinion about him,” says Francisco Ricci, a communications analyst at CSMaP, a non-partisan think-tank at New York University.
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