I'm originally from Brazil, there Bolsonaro's election was very likely boosted by his campaign's use of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram as platforms for attacking the press and his opponents. The kind of fake news that got traction ranged from "toddlers' bottles in the shape of dicks are going to be distributed by <main opponent's party>" to "a 'gay kit' study material to be distributed to kids as young as 6 years old has been created by <his main opponent government>".

Those kind of news really got some traction in Brazil, and are utterly fake. Facebook did nothing, this was spread all around my news feed during 2018, the religious right-wing nuts (neopentecostal types of churches, Prosperity Gospel and all) were swung by their greedy "pastors" latching onto these rumours of what they perceive as imoral and satanic (anything involving LGBTQ, feminism or socialism). Some of these pastors in Brazil are billionaires, owning open broadcast media networks (Rede Record) and wield that power, Brazilian Congress has almost a 1/5 of its elected members coming from Evangelical churches, called "the Evangelical bench".

Anyhow, I digress into that to show a facet of society, of one affected country, that mainstream media in English doesn't usually show. One facet that explains how simple is for an absurd fake news such as a "gay kit" being distributed to kids to help swing elections.

I can't imagine how many similar surreal experiences happened on Facebook in other languages and non-newsworthy countries.

Thank you, Sophie.