Self-employed people impersonated entrepreneurs in posts on 1/8 – 8/20/2023 – Politics

Most of the Twitter profiles that posted in support of the January 8 coup attempt claimed to be businessmen or entrepreneurs, although they were, in reality, self-employed.

Among women, many used positive words in their profile description: “battling”, “hopeful”, “blessed”. Men, on the other hand, identified themselves by opposition – “anti-Lula”, “against the left” and “against communism”.

Based on a survey of nearly 90,000 Twitter accounts, the study mapped the profile of people who published requests for a coup, military intervention or support for the January 8 attacks in Brasília. Data were collected from December 30, 2022 to January 9, 2023.

By analyzing the description of users in their Twitter accounts and links to personal websites, researchers found a common language in this Bolsonarist ecosystem that goes beyond identity as Christians, right-wing, conservative, patriots and defenders of the family and the right to carry weapons.

Many of the 8/1 supporters describe themselves as entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs, but are, in reality, self-employed: manicurists, hairdressers, salespeople, electricians, as verified in the qualitative analysis of personal websites.

“This image that the supporters of the coup were members of the elite, businessmen, entrepreneurs, is not accurate – in reality, when examining it, we see that many are autonomous, far from being rich”, says Rosana Pinheiro-Machado, director of Digital Economy and Extreme Politics Lab at University College Dublin.

She is a co-author of the study, alongside Debora Diniz, a professor at UnB, and Fábio Malini, from the Federal University of Espírito Santo (Ufes), in addition to researchers Athus Cavalini, from Ufes, and Wagner Silva Alves, from Dublin.

Rosana claims that calling himself a businessman or entrepreneur is a phenomenon with a political and religious background, a rejection of the working identity in favor of a free market ideology and prosperity ethics preached by neo-Pentecostal churches.

Débora says that the study did not find a significant presence of Twitter users who identify themselves as military or police.

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t have a strong presence among disseminators of support for the coup, but rather that they fear punishment and cannot expose themselves.”

On Twitter, women were more devoted to former president Bolsonaro, and men more anti-Lula: 13% of women and 9% of men included the name Bolsonaro in their description, while 1.5% of men and 0 .1% of women mentioned being against President Lula.

“We thought that, among women, we would find mentions of right-wing female figures, such as Senator Damares Alves [Republicanos-DF] and the former first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, but it didn’t materialize”, says Rosana.

Women tend to emphasize positive emotions in their descriptions: “accomplished”, “happy”, “blessed”, “hardworking”, “fighting” and “overcoming obstacles” and “hope” were the most frequent words. This didn’t show up on accounts that identified themselves as men, who typically said they love “Jesus”, “family”, “Brazil” and soccer teams.

This is in contrast to characteristics of the American and European extreme right, which stands out for negative emotions among men, usually anger and resentment (against immigrants, globalization).

“In the Global North, we have the figure of the ‘angry white man’, the angry white man, from an impoverished middle class”, says Rosana.

In the study, this figure of the right-wing woman from the Global South appears, with an emphasis on being a fighter, having hope, working hard. “The male supporters of the coup, on the other hand, identify themselves by opposition – I’m not leftist, I’m not a communist, anti-Lula, anti-gender ideology.”

Following the tradition of Olavo de Carvalho, the Bolsonarism guru who died in 2022, many users describe themselves as historians, philosophers, amateur astrophysicists.

Among them, the most cited careers (many mentioned more than one profession) were business, finance and commerce (18%), engineering (12%) and law (10%).

Among the women, the majority identified themselves as lawyers (18%), businesswoman/entrepreneur (12%), administrator (12%), but always added personal information such as “mother” (20.5%) and “married” ( 7.3%). Only 7.7% of men described themselves as “father” and 2.1% as “married”.

In this universe, the most retweeted politicians, both by women and men, were former president Jair Bolsonaro and federal deputies Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG) and Gustavo Gayer (PL-GO).

The most shared sites were Terra Brasil Notícias, Revista Oeste and Jornal da Cidade Online, which had content classified as false by checking agencies and were demonetized by internet platforms.