There is a lot of money involved in getting Bolsonaro back in power:
> Brazil’s government announced Friday that annual deforestation in the Amazon fell to its lowest level since records began in 1988 [. . .] During Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, from 2019 to 2022, Amazon deforestation surged by about 60% [0]
This highlights the greatest difference between these two candidates (imo), one wants to preserve the 'lungs of the Earth', the other wants to rip them out for profit and give the world a middle finger on their way out.
Because the rain in most of Brazil depend on the Amazon. If the forest is gone, we will have desertification in the most populous regions of Brazil. The southeast is already facing droughts periodically, and it will get worse with more deforestation. With less rain we will produce less food, which means not only that food will become more expensive in Brazil (and a lot of people will face hunger), but we also depend on the agricultural output to avoid a trade deficit. Less rain means less food exports which means less dollars getting into Brazil, which will, among other things, turn Brazil into a hotter Argentine.
No seriously. There's a flying river, kilometers high in the sky, that goes from the Amazon to various Brazilian regions. It transports more water than the Amazon river itself (which is already the river with the highest discharge of the world). The water source is transpiration from Amazonian trees. Without the trees, the flying river is gone
It is somewhat confusing to me that more countries don't treat Meta as a political threat. China's approach to restricting access to western internet companies looks more and more reasonable in hindsight. The US tech giants appear to be politically active and becoming more and more willing to influence elections. I don't like the strategic situation of any anti-US political parties with Facebook in the mix (not a comment on Lula, about whos policies I know little).
That being said, it is a complex issue. There are countries that refuse to embrace US style free speech and so there is a natural pressure to move political speech to US-controlled media platforms as a result. The average quality of the chatter is higher.
I wouldn't attribute an eventual Lula defeat to this, however.
His 3rd term was terrible, dozens of new taxes were implemented, living costs rose, purchasing power declined, and it became obvious that he was governing through the supreme court. His campaign was overconfident and taken completely off guard when they got utterly eviscerated in the 1st round of elections earlier this month. Left wing desperation was palpable.
Partidarian judges and journalists did everything they could to help Lula, but after the presidential debates on live television, it's pretty much over. There's just no way this guy is even fit to lead the nation ever again.
>Lula went on national television and said he's going to end police in reply to Bolsonaro vowing to classify the drug traffickers as narcoterrorists.
Without knowing much about Brazilian politics, all I can say is that I strongly doubt this. And at least a quick Google AI question suggests that your statement is not just off but completely false.
> [Auto-Translated] The Sleeping Giants Brazil report analyzes 300 Reels of 30 Instagram profiles to investigate evidence of algorithmic favoring to federal deputy Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG). Its ten videos totaled 410.5 million views, nearly three times the total of the 90 videos of the other nine MPs analyzed. In views by follower, its performance was 17.2 times the typical value of these deputies, 29.3 times that of the largest Brazilian profiles and 33.7 times that of the largest profiles in the world. His average viewing was behind only Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, surpassing celebrities such as Selena Gomez, Beyoncé and Justin Bieber. The study documents a persistent disparity that requires more transparency from the Meta, although public data does not allow it to determine its causes.
Both sides are pulling record levels of engagement. It's a colosseum out there. But yes, one of the sides is more automated as usual. Most of the left engagement is human driven.
Looks at least partially organic to me, the guy is very cute and looking at his youtube video it is full of female commenters and has 2.7m subscribers.
So he is a celebrity and not just a politician, probably a lot of women are in love with him.
If anything, many in Brazil feel a social media decline or stagnation. Orkut was poised to restart here and was met with great anticipation. Good market to new novel social media ideas.
Somehow something like Baidu web doesn’t seem too bad now. Brazil could use some sovereign tech.
At a certain point the big social media companies are going to have to publish their algorithms and/or let you choose your own re: friends updates, friends of friends, things your friends or friends of friends liked, etc. Make your algorithm too opaque and you run the risk of outrage engagement showing up as "the platform pushed this" whatwver that happens to be.
It's a hollow complaint given the countless abuses of Lula, his party and all the left wingers in the judiciary and media.
Back in 2022, Bolsonaro was barred from even going live on social media while at the Palácio da Alvorada. Lula has no such restrictions and did it multiple times. Even now, we've got judges who have openly declared that they vote for Lula absolving him of the same actions they condemned Bolsonaro for in 2022.
Whatever it is that Meta is doing, it is literally nothing compared to what they did to the Brazilian right wing. Can't say I feel sorry for them. They literally pulled out all the stops, and it's actually going to be cathartic when they lose anyway.
Facebook has also made content decisions that have hurt right wing interests in the past, such as in 2020 when they banned several accounts affiliated with Bolsonaro
"Any suggestion that Meta favors one side is false"
Weird how it keeps happening (e.g. just last week, Instagram and the No Kings account), and it's always to the benefit of right-wing extremists. I'm sure it's just an accident, though, surely they wouldn't lie on the internet.
I only use FB occasionally for marketplace with an empty account. All that it's ever suggesting in the home feed is hateful, right-wing content. Never anything positive. It's so sad that that's what drives the metrics these people care about. If this is your job, shame on you!
Don't be fooled. Whatever it is that Meta is doing, it's only a fraction of what Lula, his party and his supreme court ministers did to the Brazilian right wing. Censorship was the least of it.
I'm not even denying that it's happening. I'm just saying I don't care.
No, it's the lawnmower analogy again: Zuckerberg has no political views, he just thinks that Trump will restrict him less/allow him to make more money/is easier to exploit.
There is a lot of money involved in getting Bolsonaro back in power:
> Brazil’s government announced Friday that annual deforestation in the Amazon fell to its lowest level since records began in 1988 [. . .] During Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, from 2019 to 2022, Amazon deforestation surged by about 60% [0]
This highlights the greatest difference between these two candidates (imo), one wants to preserve the 'lungs of the Earth', the other wants to rip them out for profit and give the world a middle finger on their way out.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/brazil-amazon-deforestation-lula-...
Well that sucks then: https://polymarket.com/event/brazil-presidential-election
80% chance Bolsonaro wins.
https://globalelectionsimulator.com/brazil/
Election starts a few hours from now. We'll know the results by tonight.brazilians are extremely poor, even with the programmes that try to masquerade the numbers.
why would they care about the amazon if they barely have any money?
climate pov is a first world luxury. no one serious about this election would even attempt to make.
Because the rain in most of Brazil depend on the Amazon. If the forest is gone, we will have desertification in the most populous regions of Brazil. The southeast is already facing droughts periodically, and it will get worse with more deforestation. With less rain we will produce less food, which means not only that food will become more expensive in Brazil (and a lot of people will face hunger), but we also depend on the agricultural output to avoid a trade deficit. Less rain means less food exports which means less dollars getting into Brazil, which will, among other things, turn Brazil into a hotter Argentine.
https://piaui.uol.com.br/web/six-conclusions-about-model-of-...
No seriously. There's a flying river, kilometers high in the sky, that goes from the Amazon to various Brazilian regions. It transports more water than the Amazon river itself (which is already the river with the highest discharge of the world). The water source is transpiration from Amazonian trees. Without the trees, the flying river is gone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_river
If I had a button that would burn that entire jungle down and replace it with a top tier national semiconductor industry, I'd press it twice.
Only university leftists care about the Amazon to the point they sacrifice national interests for it. Completely disconnected from reality.
> Europe is not worried about the trees in the Amazon, they want the subsoil.
Dr. Enéas Carneiro.
It's all about the rare earths.
It is somewhat confusing to me that more countries don't treat Meta as a political threat. China's approach to restricting access to western internet companies looks more and more reasonable in hindsight. The US tech giants appear to be politically active and becoming more and more willing to influence elections. I don't like the strategic situation of any anti-US political parties with Facebook in the mix (not a comment on Lula, about whos policies I know little).
That being said, it is a complex issue. There are countries that refuse to embrace US style free speech and so there is a natural pressure to move political speech to US-controlled media platforms as a result. The average quality of the chatter is higher.
It’s sad but it’s real and it’s happening. In Brazilian news, this is actively being exploded upon and it is not reaching mainstream media properly.
[1] - https://www.instagram.com/reel/De2BfVRD30o
[2] - https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/10/16/meta-employees-...
I wouldn't attribute an eventual Lula defeat to this, however.
His 3rd term was terrible, dozens of new taxes were implemented, living costs rose, purchasing power declined, and it became obvious that he was governing through the supreme court. His campaign was overconfident and taken completely off guard when they got utterly eviscerated in the 1st round of elections earlier this month. Left wing desperation was palpable.
Partidarian judges and journalists did everything they could to help Lula, but after the presidential debates on live television, it's pretty much over. There's just no way this guy is even fit to lead the nation ever again.
Funny, that sounds exactly like what an American right-winger would say about Biden in 2024.
I guess Brazil is about to experience a shit-show similar to what the US is going through now, then. Not much hope left anywhere.
Lula went on national television and said he's going to end police in reply to Bolsonaro vowing to classify the drug traffickers as narcoterrorists.
It's not even a lie. These leftists do want to abolish the police and create a bolivarian national guard or whatever.
He says this despite the fact organized drug gangs have been known to wage literal drone warfare in Rio de Janeiro. I'm not even kidding.
https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/nacional/sudeste/rj/operacao-no...
I seriously doubt he's going to recover from this.
>Lula went on national television and said he's going to end police in reply to Bolsonaro vowing to classify the drug traffickers as narcoterrorists.
Without knowing much about Brazilian politics, all I can say is that I strongly doubt this. And at least a quick Google AI question suggests that your statement is not just off but completely false.
He literally said those words. I heard them. Whole nation heard them.
Most charitable interpretation possible is he's too senile and doesn't know what he's saying anymore. Not a good luck either way.
He also closed the 1st presidential debate by saying that if he won, Brazil would end. Just another one of those moments.
At the same time, some candidates from the opposition are getting more views than Beyoncé and other artists known globally.
https://sleepinggiantsbrasil.com/biblioteca/visualizacoes-de... (portuguese)
To save others a couple clicks:
> [Auto-Translated] The Sleeping Giants Brazil report analyzes 300 Reels of 30 Instagram profiles to investigate evidence of algorithmic favoring to federal deputy Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG). Its ten videos totaled 410.5 million views, nearly three times the total of the 90 videos of the other nine MPs analyzed. In views by follower, its performance was 17.2 times the typical value of these deputies, 29.3 times that of the largest Brazilian profiles and 33.7 times that of the largest profiles in the world. His average viewing was behind only Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, surpassing celebrities such as Selena Gomez, Beyoncé and Justin Bieber. The study documents a persistent disparity that requires more transparency from the Meta, although public data does not allow it to determine its causes.
Both sides are pulling record levels of engagement. It's a colosseum out there. But yes, one of the sides is more automated as usual. Most of the left engagement is human driven.
Looks at least partially organic to me, the guy is very cute and looking at his youtube video it is full of female commenters and has 2.7m subscribers.
So he is a celebrity and not just a politician, probably a lot of women are in love with him.
If anything, many in Brazil feel a social media decline or stagnation. Orkut was poised to restart here and was met with great anticipation. Good market to new novel social media ideas.
Somehow something like Baidu web doesn’t seem too bad now. Brazil could use some sovereign tech.
meta employees will look at this and think that their job isn't political. what a j o k e.
At a certain point the big social media companies are going to have to publish their algorithms and/or let you choose your own re: friends updates, friends of friends, things your friends or friends of friends liked, etc. Make your algorithm too opaque and you run the risk of outrage engagement showing up as "the platform pushed this" whatwver that happens to be.
X did publish their algorithms.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49310291
They set the standard in transparency.
I don't think anything will force them to do this. Can you elaborate on why you think they'll be forced to do this?
Algorithms are something we should definitely regulate, as a generalization of social media and Ai decisions over human lives.
I'd like to see something like ATProtocol feeds forced upon these companies, anyone can create any kind of feed, it works in all clients.
Title: Meta employees say Lula’s accounts restricted in Brazil election: Report
> don't editorialize.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Apologies! Fixed the title now
Did you expect more from FaceBook?
Good.
How is it good that companies in the US is interfering with elections in other countries? Seems like a bizarre take.
Are you one of the guys that support the pedophile Trump and believe everything he says to he gospel?
Probably, and as with most of MAGA adjacent electorate, it’s comprised of frequently stubborn brainwashed minds with no way of arguing out of.
It's a hollow complaint given the countless abuses of Lula, his party and all the left wingers in the judiciary and media.
Back in 2022, Bolsonaro was barred from even going live on social media while at the Palácio da Alvorada. Lula has no such restrictions and did it multiple times. Even now, we've got judges who have openly declared that they vote for Lula absolving him of the same actions they condemned Bolsonaro for in 2022.
Whatever it is that Meta is doing, it is literally nothing compared to what they did to the Brazilian right wing. Can't say I feel sorry for them. They literally pulled out all the stops, and it's actually going to be cathartic when they lose anyway.
So it's good that Meta is interfering with elections in other countries because it did it in the past? That's a completely bizarre take.
It’s a nut take with Lula pessimism. The left has taken a radical turn to fight back against bot engagement employed by the extreme right.
It’s just a technical issue that seems to magically and repeatedly happen in favor of right wing interests. Crazy how that just works out some times.
The Brazilian left has done much worse than whatever it is that Meta is doing.
> We have defeated Bolsonarism!
Luís Roberto Barroso, former Brazilian Supreme Court Justice.
Whoopsie! A slight technical error that aligns with the politics of the White House, it's wild how that happens from time to time to time to time...
Facebook has also made content decisions that have hurt right wing interests in the past, such as in 2020 when they banned several accounts affiliated with Bolsonaro
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/facebook-suspends-disi...
"Any suggestion that Meta favors one side is false"
Weird how it keeps happening (e.g. just last week, Instagram and the No Kings account), and it's always to the benefit of right-wing extremists. I'm sure it's just an accident, though, surely they wouldn't lie on the internet.
I hope to see Mark dragged in front of congress every day of his life next year.
For flexing muscles and advancing U.S. foreign policy goals abroad? Doubt it.
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50122713
I only use FB occasionally for marketplace with an empty account. All that it's ever suggesting in the home feed is hateful, right-wing content. Never anything positive. It's so sad that that's what drives the metrics these people care about. If this is your job, shame on you!
Don't be fooled. Whatever it is that Meta is doing, it's only a fraction of what Lula, his party and his supreme court ministers did to the Brazilian right wing. Censorship was the least of it.
I'm not even denying that it's happening. I'm just saying I don't care.
Is this a Trump thing?
Like is the motivation to please Trump and ask for stuff/be left alone? Or is Zuckerberg really gone full right wing globally?
No, it's the lawnmower analogy again: Zuckerberg has no political views, he just thinks that Trump will restrict him less/allow him to make more money/is easier to exploit.
It would absolutely strike me as a Trump thing, yes. We have a habit of mirroring the US, and it shows
Possibly. All things point to Bolsonaro's son winning the election today. He's a Trump ally.
If the Brazilian right wins, then it will mean that not a single left wing party has won an election in South America since the end of USAID.
Facebook always aligns with the right wing no matter if the white house is left wing or right wing.
damned if you do, damned if you don't
By which frame of comparison do you say they were ever "damned even though they didn't"?