How social media exposed the fractures in Brazilian democracy (FT)

As Brazil faces one of its most divisive elections in years, Douglas Garcia, like many of his countrymen, has come to see social media not so much as a way to communicate with friends but as a virtual political battlefield.

A founder of Direita São Paulo, a group supporting Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right presidential candidate, Mr Garcia relishes an online brawl — even with Jornal Nacional, the most popular television news programme that, before the social media era, used to wield the power to determine winners and losers in Brazilian elections.

“The biggest drivers [of online audiences] are the fights that we start on social media,” says Mr Garcia, who is also standing in the October elections as a candidate for the São Paulo state legislature.

The 24-year-old wears a black T-shirt emblazoned with Mr Bolsonaro’s face and the words “honour, moral, ethics”: on the back is an AR-15 rifle. “I did a video for example cursing the people on Jornal Nacional and that video had half a million hits.”

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