Brazil's new president Jair Bolsonaro rode to power on a platform of racist and gendered discrimination, genocide for indigenous people, homophobia, torture apology, and the abolition of human rights; he owes his victory to political spamming and conspiracy theories spread on Facebook at Whatsapp.
When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. On Bolsonaro's first day in office he unveiled a suite of legal attacks against racial, gender and gender-identity minorities that threaten to roll back the country to the days of the brutal military junta he once served.
In case you have any doubt about whether Bolsonaro really owes his election to Facebook and Whatsapp, allow his hardcore supporters to remove that doubt: at his inauguration, Brazil's bootlickers and useful idiots gathered to chant "Facebook!" and "Whatsapp!".
Um canto inédito em qualquer #PossePresidencial no Brasil: "WhatsApp, WhatsApp! Facebook, Facebook!" pic.twitter.com/m0C2fOdEze
— JOTA (@JotaInfo) January 1, 2019
Bruce Sterling: "It's gray, it's becalmed. It's not a fatal gloom, but it is a kind of learned-helplessness, a malaise and bewilderment. It's very much the attitude of people who sign onto Facebook 'cause they can't yet figure out any other way to live. They do that, because they must conform to the apparent need, despite their vague oxlike awareness that they're being spied on, tricked, and defrauded."
