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Paper short abstract:

This research is investigating the centrality of fake images in Brazilian presidential elections of 2022. Religiously charged fake images are in the middle of a pictorial war where both sides seem to suggest an ugly battle between the good and the bad, inflicting moral panic among electors.

Paper long abstract:

Brazilian presidential race of 2022 has mobilized emotions beliefs and strategies of disinformation that took Brazilian population by storm. Fake narratives, montages and false images have been a constant in Brazil, ever since Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil´s far right president, was elected in 2018. In 2022, those narratives have seen a great deal of intensification and false or misleading images of all kinds have been spreading every day on social medias. These coordinated actions were meant to create moral panic especially because Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, the popular Worker´s Party, left wing leader was back into politics after being acquitted from Brazil´s biggest corruption scandal: Lava Jato. Bolsonaro´s solid evangelical base was fed with a great deal of fake images. Those images present Bolsonaro as a Christian athlete, riding withe horses or leading the world towards salvation but also antagonizing Lula, forging images that show him as an antichrist, supporting non-Christians, abortion and LGBT agenda, or in connection with crime. Starting the second tour of the elections, Lula´s campaign entered the disinformation war using the same tools as their opponents, forging fake images about Bolsonaro’s connection with the masonry and propagating symbols and signs that might lead to the direct association of Bolsonaro with the antichrist. Fact checking agencies like LUPA but also firm actions taken by the Supreme Court together with the Electoral Justice department have decrypted, revealed and taken out of the web these types of fake contents. Yet, the velocity of the fake is far greater.