YouTube suspends funding to pro-Bolsonaro Brazilian channels over election disinformation

YouTube has suspended the payments for at least 14 channels’ content producers in Brazil over allegations of spreading fake, unauthentic news and disinformation about the next year’s upcoming elections.  Latin American nation’s top federal electoral court, the TSE announced the decision on Thursday to ban the far-right channels that propelled pro-government content in favour of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, allegedly influencing the popular opinion among the public. “We reinforce our commitment to collaborating with the work of authorities in Brazil and to continue to invest in policies, resources, and products to protect the YouTube community from harmful content,” Alphabet’s YouTube in Brazil said in a statement, as accessed by news agencies. 

According to local Brazilian outlets, the suspension followed The Inspector General of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Minister Luis Felipe Salomão’s orders that sought to block the revenue of pocketnaristas channels running on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook platforms. The channels were disseminating prohibited information about electronic voting machines and the Brazilian electoral system, sources claim about the now deactivated pages and channels. The move is the outcome of the country’s Federal Police’s July probe against Jair Bolsonaro for operating channels for COVID-19 misinformation. A number of videos from several channels were similarly removed for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus, YouTube had, at the time, informed via a press statement. 

"After a careful review, we removed videos from Jair Bolsonaro's channel for violating our COVID-19 medical misinformation policies," the company had stated, warning further surveillance of such right-wing channels. The video platform emphasized that it applied its policies across its platform without consideration of Bolsonaro's political ideology. 

Disinformation stimulates polarization

Minister Luis Felipe Salomão had advised registering supporters, going LIVE on channels with the payment services, and advertising donations on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. These platforms were also ordered to demonstrate the earnings made by the channels, profiles, and pages. “The idea behind running such channels was to influence the voter to discredit the system and thus obtain political-partisan or financial advantages,” local news outlets reported Salomão as alleging.

“These elements would lead to the belief that there is indeed a vast, organized, and complex network to negatively contaminate the political debate and stimulate polarization,” he said. Inspector General also stressed that the disinformation and rigorous campaign of it would extrapolate the right to criticism, protest, disagreement, and the free circulation of ideas during the time of the election and hamper democracy.