Brazil: The code word used to invite protesters to a riot

On Sunday, the satellite watched, stunned, arsenic thousands of supporters of Jair Bolsonaro stormed Brazil's Congress, Supreme Court and statesmanlike palace.

In echoes of the attacks connected the United States Capitol astir precisely 2 years ago, they tore done buildings shouting the mendacious accusation that the statesmanlike predetermination had been rigged, and that Bolsonaro was the existent winner.

But however was a convulsive protestation organised successful plain show of information services and societal media moderators? The BBC's Global Disinformation Team has been investigating.

In caller months, Bolsonaro's supporters person been spreading conspiracy theories online, pushing the thought that the erstwhile president was the existent victor of the election. The BBC has recovered no evidence for these claims.

In the days starring up to the onslaught connected Brazil's Congress, the rhetoric intensified and included a bid of thinly veiled metaphors. The main 1 was an invitation for Brazilians to be 'Selma's Party'.

'Selma' is simply a play connected the connection 'selva', which means jungle successful Portuguese, and is besides utilized by the Brazilian subject arsenic a greeting oregon warfare cry.

Four days earlier the riot, a video astir 'Selma's Party' went viral successful groups connected the societal media app Telegram. In it, a antheral describes the 'ingredients' for the 'party', including a marque of Brazilian sweetener called Union, and 5 ample heads of corn. Corn is different wordplay. 'Milho' means maize and 'milhão' means a million. The proposition is that 5 cardinal radical were invited to be the protest.

Other posts connected societal media offered escaped proscription from antithetic parts of the state to Brasília. They advertised "free buses" with "everything for free: water, coffee, lunch, dinner".

The enactment metaphor continued connected the time of the protests connected Twitter, wherever a video was posted showing hundreds of radical marching with a agelong yellowish and greenish banner successful Brasilia. The caption reads: "The archetypal guests are arriving… As soon arsenic everyone gets here, the barroom tin beryllium cut."

Most societal media platforms prohibit and instrumentality down calls to violence. It's apt these metaphors were utilized to evade contented moderators. In a TikTok video that has since been taken down, a pistillate explicitly says that she's nary longer talking astir authorities connected TikTok due to the fact that she doesn't privation her relationship to beryllium removed. She past proceeds to speech astir 'Selma's Party'.

Elsewhere, radical person been posting astir different 'parties', including 1 for Selma's relative 'Telma', successful São Paolo, and her sister 'Velma', successful Rio de Janeiro. For now, these events person not gained overmuch traction.

According to investigation by Arcelino Neto from the University of São Paolo, the words Festa Da Selma archetypal appeared connected Twitter connected 5th January. They person since been utilized by much than 10,000 accounts successful tweets that were shared much than 53,000 times.

The hashtag #festadaselma was utilized to 'invite' radical to crook up astatine a the analyzable of authorities buildings known arsenic "Praça dos Três Poderes" (Three Powers Square) extracurricular Congress.

Social media's relation successful the riots is nether scrutiny.

Since Elon Musk took over, Twitter has laid disconnected unit including those successful Brazil whose relation was to tackle misinformation astir the election. Twitter and Musk person repeatedly said they are addressing the astir harmful contented connected the site.

It's not the archetypal clip that misinformation online has fuelled a carnal battle connected democracy. The erstwhile Chief Executive of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, admitted to a proceeding into the storming of the U.S. Capitol successful 2021, that misinformation connected societal sites played a relation successful inciting the violence.

Meta, which owns Facebook, and Google, YouTube's genitor institution person said they are removing contented that praises oregon supports anti-democratic demonstrators successful Brazil.

Edited by Rebecca Skippage