Sleeping Giants Movement Undermines Jair Bolsonaro's Guru's Disinformation Web

Olavo de Carvalho, in Washington in March.JOSHUA ROBERTS / REUTERS

The verb “demonetize” entered the political vocabulary of Brazil when the Sleeping Giants movement, which exposes the companies they finance with their far-right Internet ads and fake news, arrived in the country three months ago. It then caused unrest in influential sectors that support Jair Bolsonaro and even led to a brief and controversial investigation by the Federal Police, amid the debate about the president's interference in the security forces.

On the Internet, demonetizing means canceling the possibility of generating income through automatic advertising on web pages. For this project, which alerts advertisers that their products appear in disinformation spaces, the word represents the most effective action to deflate networks that spread hatred and lies, such as the one headed by the greatest guru of the Bolsonaro government, Olavo de Carvalho.

The website Brasil Sem Medo (Brazil without fear) was created at the end of last year by Carvalho, intellectual mentor of Bolsonarismo. It defines itself as "the largest conservative newspaper in the country" and is the third target of the Brazilian version of Sleeping Giants. In March, when the covid-19 pandemic had already killed 30 people in Brazil, YouTube deleted a video in which Olavo de Carvalho stated: “There is not a single confirmed case of death from coronavirus. This epidemic simply does not exist. " The web supports the Bolsonarista narrative and insists on relativizing deaths from the disease.

In early June, Sleeping Giants launched a campaign to demonetize the Brasil Sem Medo website for "constantly using fake news, hate speech and conspiracy theories", as well as "promoting 'anti-science' in the midst of a public health crisis." In addition to requiring advertisers to remove automatic advertising, the movement adopted a “go to the source” strategy. He targeted companies that offer payment technology to the web, which charges 290 reais ($ 53) for the annual subscription plan.

Hotmart, a company used as a system to sell subscriptions online, doubted whether or not to stop offering the service to Brasil Sem . "It is not our responsibility to judge false news on the internet," justified João Pedro Resende, director of the company, in a statement. On July 7, however, Hotmart announced that it had decided to stop offering its technology to journalistic products of a political nature, "regardless of ideology." However, Brasil Sem Medo continues to use its means of payment. According to estimates by Sleeping Giants, the portal collects about 236,000 reais ($ 43,000) a month.

Another tactic that Sleeping Giants has used to demonetize the olavista machine has been to expose PayPal and PagSeguro, platforms that allow the sale of Olavo de Carvalho's online courses and collect donations for the Bolsonarista ideologue. After a month of pressure, the American PayPal blocked Olavo de Carvalho's account, reiterating "the commitment to diligently check that all users comply with the use policies." The Brazilian PagSeguro, however, is reluctant to suspend electronic transactions that benefit the Bolsonarista, citing "legal issues." "By law, payment institutions must guarantee non-discriminatory access to their services and freedom of choice for end users," says the company.

"Communist censorship"

Outraged by the blocking of PayPal, Olavo de Carvalho affirmed that the campaign to avoid the financing of his website is "communist censorship." "They use the word disinformation to designate any accidental error or inaccuracy," said the Bolsonarista guru in a live broadcast. "They have not shown any fake news of me." In his preaching against the progressive ideals he refers to as "communist indoctrination", Carvalho has come to associate pedophilia with the "gay movement" and recently claimed the death penalty for the Supreme Court magistrate Alexandre de Moraes, responsible of the investigation of fake news that has in its sights Bolsonarista influencers and parliamentarians.

According to the latest Sleeping Giants balance sheet, more than 270 companies have responded to the request to demonetize Brasil Sem Medo by eliminating Google's automatic ad system. With only three months of operation, the Brazilian version of the movement estimates that it has lost around one million reais ($ 183,000) to pages and channels linked to the extreme right.

"We have a lot to thank all the followers who are involved daily in our fight, demanding social responsibility from companies to have a country free of false news," says the administrator of the Brazilian account - who remains anonymous for reasons of security - celebrating the results the movement has achieved in less than 100 days.

Bolsonarismo reacts to the digital fence

Before going to Brasil Sem Medo , Sleeping Giants had in its sights the digital newspapers Jornal da Cidade Online and Conexão Politica , both with a Bolsonarista editorial line and a history of spreading false news. Jornal da Cidade Online lost more than 200 advertisers, but, after spending two months demonetized, it returned to running ads through alternative platforms, such as the affiliate program of Bet365, a British betting company. The newspaper's Facebook page is still full of automated ads.

To maintain contributions and escape the digital fence, especially in the Google system, digital activists associated with Bolsonarism have resorted to other forms of financing. Among the options they have tried is the use of bitcoins or even lesser-known crowdfunding platforms such as Thinkspot, recently launched with the aim of monetizing ultra-conservative content.

Due to the dispersal of advertisers on pages aligned with the extreme right, the Sleeping Giants crusade has reacted supporters and members of the Bolsonaro government, who have begun to campaign against companies that veto ads on the pages of their allies. A study conducted by Netlab, a laboratory at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro that investigates interactions on social networks, identified that 30% of accounts that wrote hashtags against brands on Twitter were operated by bots.

The counterattack is not limited to the digital environment. According to The Intercept Brasil , the Federal Police tried to investigate the movement in May, but everything was shelved at the request of the prosecution itself. EL PAÍS questioned the police about the investigation, without obtaining a response. The Sleeping Giants account manager also did not respond to the newspaper's inquiries.

In a statement sent to EL PAÍS, the Google spokesperson reports that, between April and June of this year, ads of more than 600,000 pages and 16,000 Brazilian domains were removed due to non-compliance with its policies, which were updated in March to avoid monetization of pages and channels with information on covid-19 contrary to scientific consensus.

With more than 380,000 followers on Twitter, Sleeping Giants Brazil already has a greater reach than its US parent. In addition to focusing on demonetizing the three aforementioned web pages, the movement has been successful in specific actions, such as the disruption of a financing campaign by the ultra-right group 300 in Brazil, classified by the Prosecutor's Office as an “armed criminal group”, and the attack against the gamers channel Xbox Mil Grau. Known for its racist, sexist and homophobic discourses, the channel closed thanks to the mobilization around YouTube and advertisers. “A collective struggle that paid off,” celebrated Sleeping Giants Brasil.