It is one more case of false information spread through digital editing tools, such as fake deep. In recent days, an alleged report by the Brazilian television channel Globo has gone viral, showing data from a survey by the Ipec institute, according to which Jair Bolsonaro leads the voting intentions against Lula da Silva. But the original images and audio were digitally manipulated.

In fact, Globo showed exactly the opposite: according to the survey data, published in the Jornal Nacional on September 12, Lula da Silva was ahead of Bolsonaro, with 46% of voting intentions, compared to 31% of the votes of the current president. Social media users manipulated the report to make believe otherwise.

“The not-so-powerful Globe leans in and shows Bolsonaro in front of IPEC, a research institute she hired herself,” one Facebook user wrote, sharing the manipulated report.

The fake version of the play changes the names of the candidates in the lines of the presenters and in the graphics shown.

Let’s see a practical example. In the images below, you can see how the information was manipulated. In the image on the left, we see that Bolsonaro leads, ahead of Lula da Silva. But the information is false. The image on the right shows the true information, released by the Jornal Nacional da Globo on September 12. That day, Lula da Silva led the voting intentions with 46%, compared to 31% for Bolsonaro, and not the other way around.

The same manipulation was performed several times throughout the piece, including in the presenters’ audios.

The original piece by Globo can be seen here and the full survey data can be consulted here.

More recently, on September 19, Globo went public to warn about the fake video.

“In these elections, the war waged on the internet has gained a new weapon: the fake deep, instrument for manipulating sounds and images that uses artificial intelligence. One of those videos states that Bolsonaro would be ahead in the IPEC voting intention survey, which is false,” the television channel wrote in a post on social media.

In these elections, the war waged on the internet won a new weapon: the deepfake, an instrument for manipulating sounds and images that uses artificial intelligence. One of these videos claims that Bolsonaro would be ahead in the IPEC voting intention survey, which is false. #JN pic.twitter.com/rBi3FroQKR

– National Journal (@jornalnacional) September 20, 2022

Ipec, the institute responsible for the survey, has also denounced the situation. In a note sent to the Brazilian news site G1, the organization is emphatic: “The video that circulates on social networks and WhatsApp groups is false where President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) appears with 46% of the voting intentions and former President Lula, of the PT, with 31%, according to data from IPEC and with images from Jornal Nacional, from TV Globo”. Ipec added that he had already reported the video to the authorities.

This fact-checking has also been done by other international organizations such as Reuters.

With the proximity of the presidential elections in Brazil, scheduled for this Sunday, October 2, false news about the candidates has been circulating on social networks.

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Conclusion.

Fake. The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, does not lead the voting intentions with 46%, compared to 31% for the opponent Lula da Silva, according to a survey by the IPEC institute published on September 12 in the Jornal Nacional da Globo. The survey data shows precisely the opposite: it is Lula who is ahead. But social media users digitally manipulated the report to make believe otherwise.

This is a false video that has already been publicly denounced by Globo and by the institute that conducted the survey.

According to the Observer classification, this content is:

WRONG

In the Facebook classification system this content is:

FAKE: the main content claims are factually inaccurate. This option typically matches “false” or “mostly false” ratings on fact-checking websites.

NOTE: This content was curated by The Observer as part of a fact-checking partnership with Facebook.