Fake news, politics religious racism in Brazil (2020-2022)

Abstract

This article highlights three cases of Fake News produced during the context of the electoral disputes from 2020 to 2022, where political characters competing with the Bolsonaro candidates were associated with African-based religions, and exposed in various publicity channels, such as “the evil that plagues the Brazilian people”. We aim to provoke a brief reflection on the dissemination of these false news that transferred party political disputes to the spiritual field. We highlight how the discriminatory perspective present in the imagination of the Brazilian population served to disperse votes, at the same time that it contributed in the expansion of racism historically aimed at the most popular Afro-religious aspects in Brazil, Candomblé and Umbanda.