The influence of algorithms and fake news on the Brazilian electoral process: are there legal alternatives to defend the democratic system and protect human rights?

Abstract

The first decades of the 21st century are characterized by the separation of power and politics. In such a juncture, marked by the State crisis and the rise of private actors - in particular transnational technology and communication companies - in the exercise of power, the political implications arising from the use of robots and algorithms to identify the profile of voters and interfere in their Voting decisions have been increasingly resonating and are becoming a real threat to democracy and human rights. From the emblematic case of Cambridge Analytica, when the presidential elections around the globe are verified, there is an exponential growth in the influence of fake news in the electoral process and its direct association with the approval of candidates with authoritarian political bias, averse to the existing democratic system. Brazil, during the 2018 elections, was one of the countries in which fake news was directly used in the manipulation of voters to obtain votes. In view of this situation, and, mainly, of political polarization and intolerance to the debate of ideas, this study, in the phase of data collection, aims to assess how false news exponentially replicated on social networks are capable of affecting democracy and what risks they pose to the human rights of freedom and privacy. In order to carry out the research, a quantitative approach centralized in the city of Rio Verde - GO will be carried out, accompanied by a bibliographic review, based on the critical dialectical method, in an interdisciplinary analytical perspective. Thus, access to information and freedom of expression will be observed, as well as the right to the protection of personal data, in contrast to excesses and the manipulation of content itself, in order to leverage votes in favor of authoritarian candidates. The results achieved with the research can be used as a subsidy for the construction of legal alternatives that are effective in preventing the reiteration of the mentioned expedient in future elections and, thus, guaranteeing the validity of the democratic political regime.