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I’m not a political journalist, so was gladly surprised at the community I found here last night. To Americans anxious about the upcoming elections, a key thing we learned in Brazil that might help you: DO NOT engage with the far-right online. Don’t share rage bait. Amplify your people. Ignore them.

After the first round elections, Congressman André Janones created a WhatsApp channel titled “Lula’s Army.” It ballooned to 10 million people following his commands on how to behave online to counteract Meta’s far-right-favouring algorithms. The right knows how to use socials. We must learn, too.

Yes but I would strongly advise using Signal messenger or other secure communications next time Whatsapp is a part of META so Zuckerberg now has access to all that info from 10 million users He could actually give that to Bolsonaro who may use it to try and annul the election results. I pray not!

Sometimes you must use the master's tools to dismantle his machines. (Gender absolutely intended here.)

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WhatsApp is extremely deeply embedded in daily life in Brazil (as in many other countries). Avoiding it for opsec and optics is theoretically sound but would never have worked.