As the United States readies for crucial midterm elections, the of through , a scheme to create thousands of fake email accounts and profiles on social networks, hiding their identity behind VPNs, pretending to be US activists and to sow division among voters by generating content on a wide range of contentious topics such as gun control, race relations and immigration. These are (with a few ) that , and once again, .

Meanwhile, , which is used by 120 million Brazilians. The company says it will . Preliminary investigations suggest far right candidate has taken Donald Trump’s lead and in , has used front companies to attacking his opponent, of the Workers Party.

. Bolsonaro’s WhatsApp campaign breaches Brazil’s electoral law by involving companies, which are prohibited from making political donations, to finance the operation, as well as by not registering electoral expense with regulators, and by purchasing lists of telephone numbers to distribute messages. If it can be proved that Bolsonaro benefited from the campaign, his candidacy could be canceled, or if he had already been elected, he could be dismissed from the presidency; that said, there is marked skepticism in the country toward an electoral law that tends to do too little, too late.

The US and Brazilian elections are just the latest examples of the biggest crisis of democracy in its history: the use of social networks to micro-target and manipulate voters through demagogic messages and fake news. All electoral campaigns try to win voters over, but they must do so within reasonable limits and above all, without interference from foreign countries or by illegal means. It is not clear whether will be able to do much to prevent the spread of misinformation and propaganda.

Western democracy faces an exceptional challenge from misuse of the social networks and we can expect further problems in the coming years. Exceptional times require exceptional measures, and : instead, we need to give electoral legislation teeth, to dismiss candidates who break the rules, and we need to swiftly block foreign interference.

As things stand, our electoral laws are simply no match for technology, so we need to act expeditiously to bring it up to speed. Is our democracy equipped to address the challenges it faces, which question its very existence? So far, clearly, it’s shown itself unable to do so, and the consequences are proving very grave.

(En español, )

Why social networks are the gravest threat to democracy in its history was originally published in Enrique Dans on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

is a popular Brazilian website created by journalist that claims to use the internet for citizen empowerment. In Portuguese, is a turnstile, the idea presumably being that everybody is welcome to the site. On the morning of November 30, in the wake of in which 71 people died, including most of Brazilian soccer side , its had garnered more than 8.3 million Likes. About 12 hours later, that number had dropped below 7.8 million.

So why would a page lose so many readers in such a short time? The site had republished several stories such as tips for people afraid of flying, along with another about the myths of air travel, mentioning the tragedy directly and used the hashtag #acidentenaColombia. This questionable decision prompted many complaints, which the site responded to by saying that it was only publishing material relevant to the tragedy.

In turn, some readers started a campaign to unsubscribe from the site, which is what led to the steep falloff in readers and that . By 2 pm, the site, clearly worried, published a couple of apology notes that failed to convince readers or halt the descent. By 4.30 pm, the site’s founder posted a personal apology on called “” (my mistake), accepting full responsibility, but that did nothing to stop the fall-off in readers.

Meanwhile, on its site, sporting goods site raised the price of Chapecoense’s official shirt by two thirds, angering many people. It , and its founder even saying that the price increase had been carried out automatically after stock set aside for had been sold. Returning the shirts to their discounted price did little to appease the ire of many users.

When emotions are unleashed in the aftermath of a tragedy such as happened earlier this week, the social networks can magnify a collective feeling, often with unpredictable results. In this case, it was sufficient for a group of people to express their anger at a given target, which suddenly found itself the focus of a collective rage.

Did Catraca Livre or Netshoes do anything so egregious as to deserve such a backlash? Depending on how you see things, Catraca was guilty simply trying to meet its readers’ demand for news items related to the accident. The problem is that at such a moment, when people’s feelings are running high, it is easy to find oneself on the end of a digital lynch rope. Were the explanations offered by the two sites credible? It matters little once the story has settled in the collective imagination and is reduced to an accusation of trying to generate more traffic or to bump up the price of soccer shirts.

Decisions were taken at lightening speed after which there was no going back: a lesson, were it needed, that the internet can be a very harsh and unforgiving environment.

My thanks to Brazilian journalist , student of the at the . A native of the state of , home to Chapecoense, she lost friends and acquaintances in the tragedy, and she was the one calling my attention to this.

(En español, )

Social networks and amplification was originally published in Enrique Dans on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Earlier this week, , the most popular messaging service in the South American country, after it failed to comply with a court order to provide information on one of its users. More than 90 percent of internet users subscribe to the service, which has prompted Brazilian phone companies — who charge  — to call it an “” on the basis that it doesn’t have the same overheads as they do. All this sounds rather like the brouhaha at the beginning of the century, when telecoms players protested at Skype’s “piracy” (the term used by Telefonica Brasil). They do things differently in Brazil, it would seem.

The wasn’t about “piracy”, but instead the company’s refusal to provide information about a customer involved in a trial, and should be seen in the context of the Brazilian government’s steady erosion of internet neutrality. Brazil’s Congress, the credibility of which has been eaten away by institutionalized corruption (the country’s president, ), has fought tooth and nail against passed in 2014 that aims to guarantee internet neutrality and privacy, freedom of expression, along with limited responsibility on the part of telecoms providers to share their customers’ information.

Opposition to the civil rights framework has been led by telecoms companies and politicians obsessed with controlling the internet. At the head of this unholy alliance is the president of Congress, , a former lobbyist for the telecoms sector and who faces corruption charges. He wants to , to be stored for three years by their internet provider, and that in turn the government could demand to see, without a judicial order. It has been dubbed “the big spy” by Brazilians. Congress sees the internet as its enemy, a place where journalists and civic associations are free to criticize its members, many of whom are implicated in corruption scandals. Rather than do something about corruption, it seems easier to just shut down the internet and silence the population.

Brazilians are among the planet’s most active internet users, and have carried out many successful protest campaigns against their (mostly) wretched politicians, for example on the eve of last year’s World Cup, they highlighted the need for other investment priorities.

Corruption, draconian laws, absurd bans (WhatsApp’s main rival, ) and politically bankrupt. The internet has become the barometer of the democratic crisis in a country that not long ago was considered one of the world’s most exciting emerging economies. Little wonder that Brazilians, long weary of their country’s failure to meet its enormous potential, like to tell visitors with a sardonic smile: “Brazil: the country of the future… and it always will be.”

(En español, )

Why Brazil will always be the country of the future was originally published in Enrique Dans on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.