The Circulation of Dangerous Speech in the 2020 Brazilian Elections

SUMMARY This research project aims to identify the online distribution network of dangerous political content by radicalized groups during the 2020 Brazilian municipal elections. We start from the premise that dangerous and hostile messages, grounded in entrenched prejudices or latent social anxieties, generate greater online engagement, fostering a climate of opinion conducive to the creation and circulation of fake news. Furthermore, our second premise is that the more deeply rooted social conviction in false and conspiratorial facts is, the greater the implications of dangerous speech for the distortion of public opinion and for anti-democratic voter behavior. Based on the mapping of public pages and groups on Brazilian politics with a radicalized bias — covering networks ranging from the far right to the far left — we propose to: 1. monitor the flow of dangerous messages; 2. detect the most viral dangerous content; 3. identify the formation of cohesive communities of interest through which these messages are amplified; and 4. identify the participation of micro-influencers (ordinary accounts) and macro-influencers (public figures) in promoting arguments and content that are dangerous to electoral and democratic processes. Thus, the research also aims to analyze the connection between dangerous and hateful speech and social and political reality.