Misleading: It is a misleading video published on Kwai that tries to relate statements by the president and reelection candidate, Jair Bolsonaro (PL), made in 2018, to the second round of the 2022 presidential race. In the content, Bolsonaro offers “grass” to voters of the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). The video is old and there is no mention of voters from the Northeast of the country, as the author of the post suggests, using the caption “lack of respect for the people of the Northeast”. The population of the Brazilian Northeast became the target of xenophobic attacks after the region registered the highest number of votes for Lula in the first round of the presidential race.
Investigated Content: Video that circulates in Kwai shows President Bolsonaro holding a handful of grass in his hands and offering it to voters of former President Lula. The content is overlaid with the phrases: “Lack of respect for the people of the Northeast. We will ‘give’ you that answer now in the second round”. The author of the post still uses the hashtags “#Eleições2022”, “querosaber”, “meajudaTSE” and “comLula”.
where it was published: Kwai.
Completion of Proof: Video is misleading when trying to relate statements by President Jair Bolsonaro, made in 2018, with the 2022 electoral process. On that occasion, the politician held a handful of grass in his hands and said he would offer it to the voters of former President Lula. The video was recorded when Bolsonaro was watching a half-marathon in Rio de Janeiro. When reposting the content, the author cites an alleged disrespect by Bolsonaro towards the population of the Northeast of the country and says that voters will give the president the answer in this second round of the electoral dispute.
Last Sunday (2), Brazilians went to the polls to choose the future president of the country and representatives of four other positions in dispute. The election for the presidency, however, will be decided in the second round, on the 30th, with Bolsonaro and Lula as opponents.
During the investigation, Bolsonaro came to stay for a while ahead of the PT. But, with the advance of the vote totalization of voters in the Northeast, Lula ended up turning around and ended up with 48.43% of valid votes, compared to 43.20% for the current president. Since then, the population of northeastern Brazil has become target of xenophobic attacksespecially on social networks. The region was the one that registered the highest number of votes for Lula: an advantage of 12.9 million votes over Bolsonaro.
The content investigated here, accompanied by the caption made by the author of the publication, may give the false impression that Bolsonaro is referring to the people of the Northeast when “offering grass” to Lula’s voters. Bolsonaro’s statement did take place, but in 2018, and made reference to Lula’s voters in general, as this longer version of the record shows, posted on April 9, 2018.
misleading, for Comprova, is content taken from the original context and used in another so that its meaning undergoes changes; that uses inaccurate data or that leads to an interpretation different from the author’s intention; content that confuses, with or without the deliberate intent to cause harm.
Scope of publication: As of October 6, the publication had more than 56,700 likes, more than 19,600 comments and had already been shared more than 84,000 times.
What the author of the publication says: Wanted, the author of the publication limited himself to replying that “the video is on youtube for everyone to see” and, subsequently, blocked our contact.
How do we check: Comprova searched Google and social networks with the phrase “Bolsonaro offers grass to Lula voters”. Several posts of the same content and texts were found on sites that reflected the recording, dated 2018. One of the versions, longer and with better image quality, was submitted to the tool InVid for reverse search. New posts were located on the internet with the same content, made also that year.
Bolsonaro recorded video in 2018
The video in which Bolsonaro offers grass to Lula voters is old. O registration was made in April 2018, while the current president and candidate for reelection by the PL followed a sports race in Barra da Tijuca, a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro where he has a house. At the time, Bolsonaro was a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic.
In the recording, which was shared several times on social media that month, it is possible to see that Bolsonaro refers to Lula voters in general, and not to those in the Northeast region, as the version of the video that circulated on the internet tries to make believe.
In a version longer in the video, it is possible to see that a person who greets Bolsonaro in the images refers to the 2018 elections, which took place six months after registration. The man says: “our future president, are you listening?”.
why do we investigate: Comprova investigates suspicious content that goes viral on social media about the pandemic, public policies of the federal government and presidential elections. False content that involves or mentions presidential candidates, such as the post checked in this case, can influence the decision of the Brazilian voter, who must be based on true and reliable information to define the vote.
Other checks on the topic: In this second round of the presidential race, Comprova has already shown that it is false that the ballot box found in Curitiba was not included in the election resultlike this it is false that the city of Barreiras, in Bahia, registered a number of votes for Lula higher than the population of the Municipality. We also show to be false the information that football player Vinicius Jr criticized Bolsonaro in a post on Twitter.
Investigated by: O Dia, CBN Cuiabá, Estado de S.Paulo and SBT; Verified by: GaúchaZH, Plural Curitiba, Correio Braziliense, O Popular, Folha de S.Paulo, A Gazeta, Correio do Estado, Jornal do Comércio, Grupo Sinos and Imirante.com
Source: CNN Brasil
