From algorithmic personalization to informational wars: The dynamics of (dis)information bubbles around the september 7, 2021

Abstract

Objective: The anti-democratic rhetoric related to the 2021 Brazilian Independence Day festivities rapidly spread on social media, creating informational bubbles susceptible to the widespread of disinformative pieces. Focusing on the information production', circulation' and use' this study investigates the characteristics of these (dis)information bubbles on Twitter. Methods: The data analysis was done using a combination of Social Network Analysis and Content Analysis. The data was collected via Twitter’s Application Programming Interface (API) using the search term “7 de setembro”. Results: Based on the analysis of 40,000 tweets it was identified that in six of the eight days analyzed a single bubble presented the most influence in the network. Four characteristics that contributed to this were identified: (1) the prevalence of the use of political bots (77.8% of n = 28) for sharing issues of interest, in addition to the (2) intentional use of hashtags with higher coordination and mobilization efforts, and the (3) use of sources and types of information derived from partisan media (83.3% of n = 20), which mostly appeal to collective aesthetics, affections, and passions.Conclusions: If, on the one hand, information selection and delivery strategies are fundamental in a world where information is produced on a massive scale of data, on the other hand, the untransparent way in which this personalization is done has become a formula detrimental to the democratic sphere by allowing the spread of misinformation on a large scale, as well as repositioning extremist ideologies that were once peripheral, ethically and morally rejected, to the core of the debate.