In October 2024, 5,568 Brazilian municipalities will go to the polls to elect councilors and mayors, but electoral campaigns start long before that. If digital campaigns already played a crucial role in the overall political campaigns during the 2018 and 2020 elections, this year even more pronounced use of these new technologies is expected.
Hate speech, misinformation, and political ads are among the main concerns for the online process, identified as risks in the study "Electoral Integrity in the Digital Environment: Risks and Recommendations for Brazilian Municipal Elections," developed by the German center Democracy Reporting International (DRI) in partnership with FGV School of Communication Rio, FGV Law Rio, and Lupa.
The use of advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, along with human moderation, to effectively identify and mitigate hate speech, misinformation, and content polarization, as well as adjusting algorithms to reduce the visibility of deceptive or harmful content, were some of the main recommendations highlighted in the report. The study explored categories such as State, Politics, Media, and Society to map risks and provide recommendations for electoral authorities, digital platforms, civil society organizations, and other political actors.
The risks mapped by the study are divided into three main axes: hate speech, misinformation, and political advertising. Based on these risks posed by online discourse in elections, the research outlined recommendations aimed at strengthening democracy in the digital environment and anticipating regulatory and communication challenges in online campaigns in 2024.