My 20 cents opinion, via Pix, please

Image: Marcello Casal Jr/ Agência Brasil
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By SANDRA BITENCOURT*

The case of the video, of the young and perverse extremist, has given rise to theories that it may be the result of some kind of test or manipulation of the platform.

As expressive as the number of transactions via Pix in the country, was the debate, views and viralization of criticism and manipulation of information about government normative instruction that could, supposedly, monitor financial transactions above R$5 thousand reais and charge taxes from those who were not declaring their earnings to the Federal Revenue Service.

This is an emblematic case because it brings together several factors and offers us some lessons: it is a case of manipulation, but it was not a Fake News classic, since it was anchored partly in truth and much in fear; it reveals the lack of a digital intelligence center and a more consistent government policy guideline to understand perceptions, feelings and concerns about the real lives of our people; it is the first case of viralization after Meta's announcement about changes in the way it recommends political content; it is unequivocal to finally understand that the forms of dispute have changed and that the conditions of temperature and pressure from an extreme right allied with large corporations thirsty for power and monetization, force us to change strategy. Urgently.

We can go back in time a little bit and go back to 2016, when the Oxford dictionary chose the term “post truth” (post-truth) as word of the year. Thus defined: relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. A year later, the Real dictionary of the Spanish language defined as a deliberate distortion of reality, which manipulates beliefs and emotions to influence public opinion and social attitudes.

Since then, the far right has shown extreme skill in exploiting this post-truth trend. In part, because lies tend to be simpler, cheaper and less painful. Yes, producing truth is expensive, requires more complex thinking and can be frustrating. The more fear and bizarreness, the more clicks, more business, more money, more power.

Those who have dedicated themselves to denouncing and trying to contain disinformation feel like they are trying to mop up ice. The way of operating influence in the big digital showcases, where few are the owners of the spotlight, has changed. What should be done?

The case of the video, of the young and perverse extremist, has given rise to theories that it may be the result of some kind of test or manipulation by the platform. Strictly speaking, we do not know and will never know exactly how the algorithms that define what we see, when we see it and if we see it work. And this is just one of the difficulties in understanding and controlling the absolute power of the platforms. The invisible hand of big tech defines asymmetries and we are not even aware of it. Could this be a conspiracy theory that Meta may have promoted? It may, but it is also a fact that there are new rules for recommending content.

The format of the video, the timing chosen for its release, and the strategic coordination of parliamentarians and influencers also play a role. That said, there was clearly a mistake and ineffectiveness in addressing the issue and organizing the dispute around this agenda. The viralization was the result of a successful political strategy by the opposition, but it was also the first major case of viral political content after the announcement of the return of recommendations in the feed.

And in the end, we realize that we are not just dealing with information and misinformation, but with propaganda to build social consensus or disagreement.

The difference is that the term propaganda is defined as the desire to influence the public for an ideological or political purpose that justifies the use of information, regardless of whether it is true, completely false or partially modified to persuade. This idea of ​​“manufacturing consensus” is an old one, developed by sociologist Walter Lippmann in the 20s (Lippmann, 1945). It is no coincidence that the time frame takes us back to the roots of fascism and Nazism. The emergence of mass media made it clear, already at the beginning of the 1945th century, that “knowledge of how to create consent will alter all political calculations and modify all political premises” (Lippmann, XNUMX).

Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud's nephew, applied his uncle's ideas to public relations work, with a social psychology in which behavior was linked to unconscious impulses, irrational fears and desires, and childhood fantasies. If this isn't the feed of any Instagram in life, with extremist influencers, I don't know what it is...

Propaganda became particularly relevant in the following two decades, not only in the dissemination of interested information, but in Joseph Goebbels' strategy of falsification on all sides during the Second World War. Today we have a society of disinformation and from it derives the new geopolitics of information, with an advantage for the ugly, dirty and evil.

The social sciences and early theories of communication have already overcome the idea of ​​the power of the media as “magic bullets” or hypodermic injections, with the hypothesis of a uniform and easily manipulated social organism if the appropriate and disseminable message were found even through subliminal means. But since cynicism, resentment and anti-establishment sentiments restore even Nazi salutes, it is no wonder that we have regressed in critical sense and march, in a herd, to whistles and vile stimuli.

We need a more complex explanation for the behavior and fascination of the masses with the savagery and chaos that networks today constitute.

French semiotics has already addressed in depth the fact that there are unique meanings: each reader constructs their own. But if meanings are as variable as audiences, how can we today understand that the same message has the same effect on such different people around the globe?

Accusations of eating dogs and cats, and drinking bottle-fed dicks, are phenomena that find good reception all over the world. The power of the media to impose meanings and the power of individuals to decode them have marked the discussion on this issue in the social sciences in recent decades. There is little doubt about the importance of the elites in this dispute. From today on, we will see how one of the greatest empires in humanity will use its corporations to impose terror in its final bid for dominance. Also using this, bizarre ideas that intrigue us to win someone's belief.

They establish the fable, the story, the norm or the social discourse from the perspective of those who own them (the economic elites and their capitalist logic). How will we resist? To begin with, we must recognize the trouble we are in and the need to gather intelligence, strategy and a renewed political outlook.

* Sandra Bitencourt is a journalist, PhD in communication and information from UFRGS, director of communication at Instituto Novos Paradigmas (INP).


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