Brazil: Haddad Declares 'War' On Fake News Campaign Against PT

Brazilian Workers Party (PT) presidential candidate, Fernando Haddad, has announced the creation of the "Zap do Lula" (Lula's Whatsapp), a tool "in the war against lies and rumors," during the final days before the October 7th presidential elections, as was posted on Haddad's Facebook account on Wednesday.

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With the slogan "hope will defeat hate," the PT and its candidate Haddad denounced the Fake News campaign against them, happening on Social Media and specifically focused on Whatsapp. The campaign mainly attacks the party, Fernando Haddad, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Manuela D'Avila, vice-presidential candidate for the PT and the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB).

In 12 hours, since the "Lula's Zap" was created, it received over five thousand messages denouncing Fake News aiming to discredit the left-wing party candidates. In a press conference from Sao Paulo, on Wednesday, Haddad said that "it's time to defend ourselves because what is happening in this final stretch is very serious."

"We're going to try to identify the issuers of fake news. We know that it is not simple to identify, but it is possible," it reads on Lula's official Facebook account, highlighting that the "campaign is made with ethics and proposals."

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The Fake News campaign was intensified on Sunday, after millions of women in Brazil and around the world marched against far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro under the #EleNão (#NotHim) slogan, and it was aimed to generate fear against the PT and its representatives. Rumors have reached a wide range of lies going from "Haddad has said that children over 5 would be state-owned," to saying that the election day had been moved from Sunday 7th to Monday 8th, to make supporters of Haddad miss election day.

Other false news disseminated on social media are related to fake polls predicting the election results. In a survey by the polling firm MDA Institute, released on Sunday, released data on the support for the two main candidates Haddad and Jair Bolsonaro of the far-right Partido Social Liberal (PSL). The poll revealed that Haddad grew three points in relation to the last poll and currently has the support of 25 percent of the electorate while Bolsonaro remained at 28.2 percent.