Brazil’s presidential elections in 2018 have marked the escalation of political crises that have plagued the country since, at least, 2013. Far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro was eventually elected Brazil’s president after a virulent campaign driven mostly by fake news on social networks, namely Whatsapp and Facebook. Bolsonaro’s political discourse has cemented the path to what Wendy Brown has coined as authoritarian freedom, a phenomenon that has emerged within neoliberal movements in Europe (such as Brexit) and the US (namely, Donald Trump’s election). I argue that authoritarian freedom is an analytically appealing concept to understand Bolsonaro’s election, and it is profoundly linked to the rise of fake news and the right to ignorance. Despite various efforts conducted by independent fact-checking agencies to invalidate fake news, Bolsonaro’s electorate insistently challenged not only agencies claims, but also any other reliable, even scientific sources of information. Ignorance seems to have become a deliberate choice, resonating with Bolsonaro’s far right discourse, with profound implications to the democratic process.
