Democracy under attack:
political polarization and production of hostile content on Twitter during the 2022 elections
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22456/1982-5269.129776Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the attacks on the Brazilian electoral system made on Twitter during the elections of 2022. An interdisciplinary approach and automated stance detection and natural language processing techniques were used in the article to identify the main types of toxic discourses and political stances of profiles that contributed to incivility against electronic voting machines, the Superior Electoral Court, and its magistrates. According to the data, government profiles (bolsonaristas) produce more hostile content, chiefly cursing at electronic voting machines and addressing the identity of TSE ministers negatively or hatefully.