The dark side of WhatsAppers: WhatsApp weaponization in 2018 Brazilian elections

This work, presented by researchers Charlothh Back (UFRJ, Brazil) and Sérgio Barbosa (UC, Portugal), if focus in the political campaigns that took place mainly on WhatsApp, a chat app that evokes trust and intimacy and is used by everyday citizens as a “one-stop” solution. Before used for this digital task, WhatsApp was (re) appropriated for civic engagement to foster public values at a local level, namely: the so-called “WhatsAppers”. However, misinformation and fake news phenomena poisoned the 2018 Brazilian elections, making possible the winning of the far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in 2019. What can we learn from WhatsApp weaponization during the 2018 elections? To do so, this paper aims to analyze the dark side of Brazilian WhatsAppers, revealing how this chat app plays a powerful “weapon”. The theoretical framework combines digital sociology and Bolsonarism framework to investigate different kinds of misinformation on and with WhatsApp. The comprehension over the political role of WhatsApp has three main contributions: (a) the research enables to understand the perils of WhatsApp use from a perspective outside U.S. and Europe, (b) it encourages and has its main motivation in ensuring of what happens when various uses of the WhatsApp become a weapon to spread misinformation, (c) little research has privileged WhatsApp for commercial values without contextualizing their users and use in Global South countries.