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ENGLISH VERSION CULTURE WAR

traditional equation of mom and dad is about the jewelry received by Bolsonaro facts have less influence in shaping public
increasingly in question. irregularly. opinion than appeals to emotion and
There is no doubt that Bolsonaro’s The neoliberal resumption, which began personal beliefs”.
election in 2018 was largely built on the with the 2016 coup under the leadership Of course, rumors have always existed,
backdrop of cultural wars, such as the of speculative financial capital, has been but the strength of false truths currently
“denouncements” of the gay kit or the “dick financing groups that propagate themselves stems from two factors: the use of
bottle”, fake news generated precisely to as defenders of liberal values, but, in reality, social media and the bubble that forms
spread the panic. The recent attacks on are willing to defend all types of censorship around groups with the same opinion.
the Pinacoteca do Ceará, in this sense, are and attacks on artists, one of the segments The algorithms used by Facebook, for
very similar to the combined attacks on the that, almost unanimously, denounced social example, mean that its users tend to receive
arts in Brazil in 2017. dismantling. It is no coincidence that one information that is in accordance with their
In this single year, on the eve of the of the first acts of President Michel Temer own point of view, reinforcing the idea that
presidential elections, at least three Sesc was to abolish the Ministry of Culture in the shows defend pedophilia and giving
actions were victims of hate speech – a 2016, an action that was quickly revised, due the impression, to those who have such
performance in Brasília, a play in Jundiaí to pressure from artists and the resulting an opinion, of that everyone agrees with
and a speech in São Paulo by Canadian negative repercussions. him. On the other hand, WhatsApp ends
Judith Butler, in addition to an exhibition In October 2017, Piaui magazine up being another source of fake news, as
at the Art Museum Moderna in São Paulo reporter Bruno Abbud published an people who receive information through this
and another at Santander Cultural in Porto article after having access to two months application tend to believe what they read,
Alegre. The Free Brazil Movement (MbL) of conversation in a WhatsApp group of as they receive messages from friends or
led these actions to spread lies, one of Movimento Brasil Livre (MbL), called MBL relatives, without checking their veracity.
the pillars of support for Bolsonarism at Mercado , which included at least 158 This is, in fact, a global phenomenon that
that time. The accusations are exactly in employees from institutions such as occurs even in societies with good levels of
the format described by Hunter for the Banco Safra, xp Investimentos and Merrill access to information through newspapers.
United States: “They observe some artistic Lynch, to raise funds for the group and Brexit, for example, was approved due to
object in isolation, decontextualized from “take the executives’ agendas to public rumors that remaining in the European
the artist’s broader aesthetic project, and discussions and closed-door meetings that Union was costing Great Britain US$470
consider it obscene, pornographic and MbL members would have with politicians million per week. One of those responsible
lascivious.” and national leaders”, according to Abbud for this campaign would be the British
In this case, the sociologist took as a basis in reporting. company Cambridge Analytica, partially
the controversies that involved artists such In two weeks, the group raised R$50,000 owned by the American investor Robert
as photographer Robert Mapplethorpe from investors, but donations are also Mercer, defender of conservative agendas.
(1946-1989) with his last retrospective made in miles, which guarantees free The company would also have been in
organized during his lifetime, The Perfect plane tickets to neoliberal activists. The charge of Donald Trump’s first campaign for
Moment , which would be exhibited in content of these conversations reveals the US presidency and, among its activities,
several North American museums and had some strategies behind the motivations would have been the attempted leak of
its itinerary in Washington canceled, after of this group that attacks the “degenerate 33,000 emails from then-candidate Hillary
fierce attacks from the American Family art” of the beginning of the 21st century. Clinton, as reported by Julian Assange.
Association. The exchanges of messages date back In exchanges of messages on the MbL
Returning to Brazil in the 21st century, the to the time when the then mayor of São WhatsApp group with the financial market,
use of social networks in a synchronized Paulo João Doria (pSDb) launched himself it was even suggested that João Doria
manner played an essential role in the as a candidate for president of Brazil, which (pSDb) hire Cambridge Analytica for his
attacks on the arts in 2017, something the MbL leaders celebrated and defended: campaign for the presidency, which ended
very similar to what happened with the “With or without psdb. The alliance that can up being dismantled by the party itself.
attempted coup on January 8, 2023. elect you is in the pmdb of agro and mbl In the United States, billionaire brothers
The violent way in which works of art evangelicals. Our work will be to unite this Charles and David Koch, sons of an
were destroyed at the headquarters of group in a common project”, posted Renan oil businessman, are considered other
the Three Powers, in Brasília, attests to Santos, one of its founders. possible financiers of liberal movements
how the campaign started years before It is precisely this alliance of “neoliberals” that use fake news . In Brazil, members
was essential for the mass formation of with reactionary sectors, such as of the MbL would be related to institutes
cognitive dissonant. evangelicals and ruralists, that aims to sponsored by the Koch brothers.
At the same time, attacks on culture serve defame cultural agents, in terms of what
as smoke screens, which seek to divert happened throughout 2017. If there was FaCEBook, thE EnCouragEMEnt oF
public attention from relevant facts, such no confiscation of works or exhibitions diSCord and Moral ExhiBitioniSM
as what occurred on March 8, 2023, when to ridicule the avant-gardes of the time, Diverse analysts, such as James Ball, in the
the most voted federal deputy in Brazil with Just as when the Nazis came to power, the book Post-Truth. How Bullshit conquered
1,492,047 votes, Nikolas Ferreira, took to “propaganda” against contemporary art the world, point out how fake news was
the stand on Women’s Day with a female continues stridently, as it does now in Ceará. important both for Donald Trump›s victory,
wig and made a transphobic speech. A And the battlefield is on social media, in the USa, in 2016, and for Brexit, in England,
Bolsonaro supporter, the deputy had the most suitable place to bring together in the same year, results of deliberate
just returned from the conservative CpaC moralistic groups based on fake news , strategies by agencies with expertise in
conference, in the United States, where generating what is called “post-truth” , the the area and which deceive public opinion
Eduardo Bolsonaro was also present, who word of the year 2016, according to the with campaigns with exaggerated and even
took criticism of trans culture as one of his English dictionary Oxford. According to false content. In Brazil, there is no doubt
strategies. His action was on the cover of its definition, it is a noun “that relates to or about the impact of fake news on Jair
newspapers and competed with the stories denotes circumstances in which objective Bolsonaro’s election, disseminated mainly

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