Further research also showed that the Brazilian public was consuming disinformation not only in the form of news articles, but also via audio-visual content, such as memes, false audio testimonies and even edited videos. One piece of research analysed the top fifty images being disseminated on 347 WhatsApp groups, with a staggering total of 107,256 images being shared (Chico Marés e Clara Becker, 2018). Only four of the analysed images were in fact genuine. YouTube and Facebook links were being shared to disseminate false and inflammatory content over WhatsApp, as closed platforms became vehicles for content that went viral on open ones. As investigative journalist Patricia Mello later revealed, Brazilian firms had contracts with advertising agencies in the United States to promote digital advertising in Brazil (Campos Mello, 2018). Further research revealed that data brokerage was being used to promote targeted ads in the campaign (Bruna Martins dos Santos & Joana Varon, 2018). Mass messaging services were also used by several candidates. For instance, AM4 Company worked for Bolsonaro’s campaign by spreading content to around 1,500 WhatsApp groups, including some material created by the agency (Evangelista & Bruno, 2019). They used targeted content, which was sent according to how members of groups were identified as supporters, detractors, or neutral to the campaign. Disinformation also played a major role outside the campaign, including during the 2018 truckers’ strike, which paralyzed truck transportation throughout the country and caused billions of dollars’ worth of damages to the economy. Another tragic case was a rumour that alleged that former councilwoman Marielle Franco was the wife of one of Rio de Janeiro’s drug lords. This rumour was released two hours after her murder in March 2018 (Gragnani, 2018b). This disinformation was released mostly over WhatsApp, and the company has reacted to pressure from authorities and civil society to reduce the virality of inflammatory content on their messaging system. Nonetheless, some Twitter profiles linked to Bolsonaro invited users to new platforms such as Gab and Telegram, where there is less content moderation or possibility of dialogue between the platform holders and authorities (DFRLab, 2018). As examined by DFRLab (2018), Brazil became one of the main sources of users on the platform. In 2018, content about Bolsonaro represented “a significant proportion” and the most influential accounts were linked to the Brazilian far-right. Despite peaking during the 2018 Brazilian elections, disinformation strategies did not die out after the campaign. Some of the WhatsApp groups coordinated by Flávio and Eduardo Bolsonaro continue to operate, and have become more radical (Nemer, 2020) As disagreement emerged, so did new groups. According to Nemer (2019), these groups can currently be categorized as either, government propaganda (the most extreme supporters), insurgency (prior supporters who are now part of the opposition), or social supremacy (aligned with the far-right speech). WhatsApp has been widely used for political propaganda. In fact, between October 2018 and September 2019, WhatsApp banned at least 1.5 million Brazilian users because of automation, disinformation, and hate behaviour (Militão & Rebello, 2019). Joice Hasselmann, who was a prior ally of Bolsonaro, has denounced that “a group of presidential staff routinely spreads fake news and defames the opposition across social networks as part of their day job” (Mari, 2019). She has also said that the so-called Cabinet of Hate uses sentiment analyses to make decisions on their strategies and takes advantage of the 1.4 million and 468,000 bots that amplify Jair and Eduardo Bolsonaro’s tweets, respectively (Mari, 2019). 61