WhatsApp became the left’s main digital organizing tool during Brazil’s presidential runoff, challenging the platforms traditionally associated with the country’s radical right. A channel called “Lula’s Army”, created by left-wing digital strategist and Minas Gerais lawmaker André Janones, reportedly turned around 10 million users into active supporters of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The campaign marked a significant shift in Brazil’s online political contest. Digital politics specialist Leticia Cesarino of the University of Santa Catarina described it as the first time the progressive camp had matched the far right while also building its own diversified, creative and mobilized digital ecosystem.
Brazil is a key testing ground for online political strategies. Users spend an average of 29 hours a week on social media, 60% above the global average, while Instagram and WhatsApp account for particularly large volumes of traffic. Janones has since been invited to Spain and Mexico to discuss the Brazilian campaign and ways of confronting the far right online.
The Bolsonaro movement had long held an advantage in the country’s digital battles. Jair Bolsonaro’s 2018 campaign pioneered the rapid spread of false information through Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. In 2022, despite Bolsonaro’s narrow defeat, his so-called digital hate cabinet continued to produce strong results, leading observers to expect another victory for the right in the online arena.
That expectation was reinforced by the wider spread of Trump-style politics across the hemisphere. Digital operators based in Miami helped develop strategies and platforms linked to Brad Pascale, who led communications for Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. Tools including Eyes Over and Campaign Nucleus were later associated with Argentine consultant Fernando Cerimedo and used in campaigns in Bolivia, Honduras and Colombia.
In Brazil, Cerimedo developed ties with Eduardo Bolsonaro and was among the first to spread the claim, through sympathetic algorithms and bot networks, that Lula’s 2022 victory had been fraudulent. The allegation contributed to the atmosphere preceding an attempted coup. Cerimedo’s imprisonment in Bolivia in August, on an accusation of murdering his girlfriend, disrupted those plans, but another Argentine consultant, Andy Rivas, remained active. Eduardo Gamarra of Florida International University described Rivas as an adviser to Flávio Bolsonaro and said he was closely connected to Pascale.
During the first round, Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign performed as expected in the social-media contest. A group of influencers, including young evangelical figures such as Nikolas Ferreira and Lucas Pavanato, used their millions of Instagram followers to circulate false claims and attacks. According to Cesarino, these tactics drew voters through resentment, fanaticism and anger, encouraging people to join digital crowds passively by following influential figures.
The balance began to change when Janones entered the campaign and started recruiting supporters through WhatsApp. Messages such as “Urgent, everyone! Lula is calling all the soldiers!” were delivered with an authoritative but humorous tone. Progressive networks also circulated videos depicting young people waking up and immediately beginning to recruit more supporters after hearing Janones’s voice on their phones.
The central feature of the strategy was its attempt to bypass recommendation algorithms. Former vice-presidential candidate Manuela d’Ávila explained that content on WhatsApp is distributed largely by people rather than by automated recommendation systems. Users create groups, share material with other groups, discuss it and organize directly. In that sense, Janones’s channel avoided the distribution logic that governs Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
The online effort developed alongside large street demonstrations organized after Lula’s defeat in the first round. Thousands of students from the Federal Fluminense University first gathered at Icaraí beach in Niterói. The following day, around half a million anti-Bolsonaro demonstrators, mainly young people, marched along São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista, while other pro-Lula events took place in Rio de Janeiro, Recife and elsewhere.
Those demonstrations helped energize the online campaign and accelerate recruitment to “Lula’s Army”. Mayra Goulart of the Federal Fluminense University said social media expanded the reach and coverage of events taking place in the streets.
Sources: La Vanguardia.