A few days ago, a disturbing video landed on my mobile phone.
It showed the operation of a drone specifically designed to cause fire.
The device had a container that housed dozens of spheres the size of a ping-pong ball.
The drone dropped them in the chosen position, and when they hit the ground, they lit up like matches.
The video, taken from a TikTok account, was edited and voiced by the user @amaurysflores, for whom things were clear: “They are setting everything on fire, that is how they have caused the fires in Spain, France and Portugal.
And these hypocrites saying it's global warming."
The complaint of the friend Amaurys, a Dominican peasant, according to what he recounts in the video, managed to cross the Atlantic and, jumping from social network to social network and from WhatsApp group to group,
That's how powerful misinformation is: it flies around the world without physical or technological limits and bursts into the most intimate circles, hand in hand with the people you love the most.
They are often our oldest loved ones eager to share a concern, a question, or alert the rest of the tribe to a non-existent danger.
It now remains to find a way to tell them without offending them that reality is different.
The denier Amaurys has recovered the demonstration images of Ignis, a fire control system with drone-controlled fires developed by two engineering professors from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The author of the hoax has edited the original material to integrate it into a pastiche of labels, cut images and a voiceover that warns humanity of a plot to burn the entire Earth.
WhatsApp's "forwarded many times" have become one of the main headaches for verification agencies and journalists, because disinformation circulates massively and privately and combating it in its entirety is like putting doors on the field: an impossibility.
A circumstance that politicians and populist parties take advantage of to integrate lies as a powerful and effective tool in the conquest of power.
The master of disinformation on WhatsApp is Jair Bolsonaro.
Four years ago, he acceded to the presidency of Brazil on the back of a historic campaign that exploited all the possibilities that a messaging channel like WhatsApp has for spreading deception.
146 million Brazilians have this application installed on their mobiles.
BOLSONARO WITH TOM CRUISE!!😲https://t.co/YdXy5OXa74
– OLIVER or 🇧🇷 patriot 🇧🇷 (@atestemunhafiel) August 2, 2022
Bolsonaro wants to play the same card to be re-elected next fall, but now he finds some stones along the way.
The press has learned to detect and expose hoaxes about him, such as the alleged support of actor Tom Cruise that is circulating these days.
In addition, the Superior Electoral Court works closely with the big technology companies to stop the circulation of false news.
The Brazilian Prosecutor's Office has asked WhatsApp to delay until next year the launch of "Communities", a tool that expands the possibilities of disseminating messages within groups.
They fear that misinformation about the legality of the recount will explode on WhatsApp if Bolsonaro loses the elections, with the consequent risk to the country's democratic stability.
NO AR.
It is false that Tom Cruise expressed his support for Bolsonaro in a video https://t.co/HD7qxFQyXF pic.twitter.com/uA9wZSLSIv
– Aos Fatos (@aosfatos) August 7, 2022
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