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Comment by moritzwarhier

Look at this thread and you could think that the quoted example was the first, or main one, in the article.

When in fact, it comes after

> The petition describes a GIF search on WhatsApp for the word “brasil.” The first result was an image of Flávio Bolsonaro. It showed his ticket number and identified his running mate.

> According to the records sent to the court, the same result appeared on three separate accounts. The groups use this to ask whether its top position comes from systematic ranking criteria.

> A similar check on Instagram also showed images of the senator among the first results. Users who searched for “brasil” found three images of Flávio Bolsonaro in the top positions

> On WhatsApp, a GIF search for the word “ladrão” (thief) returned a caricature of the president in a striped uniform, a reference to prison dress. Another result carried the message “Supporting the Workers’ Party is a mental illness.”

> On Instagram, a search for the same word showed a GIF reading “Vote 13.” That is the Workers’ Party election number, tied to Lula’s candidacy.

And you could also think that the authors would be for censorship and completely crazy, when in fact:

> They are not claiming that they have proven bias in Meta, choosing instead to posit the question to the Superior Electoral Court.

That's all ignoring the fact that Trump and the US openly support Bolsonora, who is in jail for attempting a coup after losing the election.

And Brazil, AFAIK, was a military dictatorship until, what, 40 years ago? To my knowledge, without a "hard cut" that would have investigated this part of the country's history.

I am not Brazilian, who knows, I can't tell whether Lula is corrupt, or anything, what I have not seen is proof of the election fraud claims put forward by Bolsonaro sr.?

Not irrelevant since his son of course rehabilitates him and wants to "correct the public record".

And also, imprisoning him of course was a strong move that also needs justification.

But it would be cool to limit political content on platforms with non-audited, non-public and intransparent engagement algorithms.

Just as it would be good to stop intransparent flow of big money into politics.

The latter is a sentiment that Trump catered to when he became president for the first time. Of course, only in a twisted, cynical way: "the system is broken, so I alone can fix it".

Regardless of anyone's political affiliation: Meta has a long history of not giving a shit whether their engagement algorithms at best... "damage" democratic processes, so I don't see any reason to be smug about it.

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