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A study carried out by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) points out that the circulation of fake news increased in the second round of elections, compared to the first round, even before the end of the genderal elections.
Growth
The growth was registered in Telegram (23%), Whatsapp (36%) and Twitter (57%). On Youtube (17%), Facebook (9%) and Instagram (5%) there was a drop, especially due to a spike in false messages on these networks on election weekend. Overall, however, the daily average of fake messages grew from 196,900 before the first round to 311,500 afterwards.
Sophistication
According to the director of UFRJ’s NetLab and research coordinator, Marie Santini, disinformation structures are increasingly sophisticated and reach not only bubbles in social networks, but also spread through society even outside the internet. Despite being in evidence at this time, she says that the disinformation campaign is permanent and is gaining increasing scale, with the adhesion of different political currents.
