False: It is false that a woman dressed in red who appears on video making the “L” sign with her hand is a servant of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), in an attitude that can be interpreted as support for president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT ). Publications on social networks lie when claiming that the person in the image is Ludmila dos Santos Boldo Maluf, a TSE servant cited in the October 26 dismissal of a court official who said he was removed from office after denouncing an alleged irregularity in the transmission. of insertions of advertisements by the then candidate for re-election Jair Bolsonaro (PL). The TSE denies the allegation. Who appears in the image is pharmaceutical Beatriz de Novaes Boldo, who has no labor connection with the TSE. Her image was taken from an aunt’s social network and misused.

Investigated Content: publications which began to go viral before the second round of the election bring, in video, images of a woman who wears a red piece of clothing and makes the “L” sign with her hand, traditionally used by Lula’s supporters. Superimposed on the image is the phrase “This is Ludmila Boldo Maluf?”, in reference to a servant of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), who was cited by Alexandre Gomes Machado, an exonerated court official, as being the superior to whom he sent e-mails. mail with complaints about alleged damage to Bolsonaro’s campaign in radio inserts. The post claims that she was responsible for the dismissal of the employee.

where it was published: Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.

Completion of Proof: It is false that the commissioned servant of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) Ludmila dos Santos Boldo Maluf appears in an image as a sign of support for President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). Who appears in videos published on TikTok and Facebook and in a screenshot released on Twitter is, in fact, pharmacist Beatriz de Novaes Boldo, who has no employment relationship with the Electoral Justice. Beatriz said that the fact that she has the same last name as Ludmila is a coincidence, and she believes that this contributed to her photo being misused.

Ludmila holds the position of chief advisor to the Office of the General Secretariat of the TSE presidency. Her name was involved in controversy after being mentioned by former Electoral Court server Alexandre Gomes Machado in testimony to the Federal Police. He reported having been exonerated minutes after sending an email to Ludmila, citing an alleged case of a radio station that failed to include inserts from the coalition of then-reelection candidate, President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in its programming. The TSE said that Alexandre’s allegations are false.

In a note to Comprova, the Electoral Justice informed that Ludmila was not Alexandre’s direct boss. According to the TSE, the former employee was assigned to the Judiciary Secretariat and, therefore, responded to the command of this sector. O organization chart of the institution shows that the Judiciary Secretariat is one of the 12 departments linked to the General Secretariat of the presidency, where Ludmila works.

For Comprova, false is any content invented or edited to change its original meaning and deliberately released to spread a falsehood.

Scope of publication: Comprova investigates suspicious content with the greatest reach on social networks. As of November 1, the post on Twitter had reached 41,000 likes, 604 comments and 11.9 retweets. On Facebook and TikTok, posts have been deleted. As of October 31, the Facebook post has recorded 204 views. On TikTok, until it was deleted, the video was viewed 172,500 times. In addition, the publication on the platform had 21,400 likes, 3,800 shares and 1,000 comments.

What does the publisher say?: We contacted the profiles that published the content on the three networks. On TikTok, the person responsible was Cris Barcelos, who argued that he only reposted the video with his opinion. The post has been deleted. On Facebook, the video was posted by Reinaldo Takahashi. After the contact made by the report, he thanked him for the information about his post and deleted it. On Twitter, the content was posted by economist and commentator Rodrigo Constantino, who did not respond to Comprova’s attempt to contact him.

How do we check: In one of the content posts located by Comprova, there was a comment from a person who claimed to be a friend of the woman who appears in the images. Comprova made contact with the internet user, who forwarded her friend’s phone number. To the team, Beatriz de Novaes Boldo confirmed that her photo was taken from an aunt’s social network and used improperly, and assured that she never had any relationship with the TSE.

Comprova also contacted the TSE press office, as well as those responsible for the false publications. He also consulted news on the Court’s website and in the press about the exoneration of Alexandre Gomes Machado, then a TSE servant, and about the accusation by Bolsonaro’s campaign of alleged imbalance in radio broadcasts.

The report was unable to contact Ludmila.

The PimEyes tool was used as an image search resource from a frame of the investigated video. The team found a person similar to the one in the verified post, contact was made with the company where the woman in question is believed to work, but there was no response.

The woman in the picture has no employment relationship with the Electoral Justice

Published on a social network, the post verified here states that the woman with a red scarf around her neck, who makes the “L” with her hand, would be Ludmila dos Santos Boldo Maluf, court servant. According to the post, she would be responsible for the exoneration of Alexandre Gomes MachadoTSE employee, after he communicated to superiors an alleged fraud in radio inserts in favor of Lula’s campaign.

Comprova managed to contact the woman in the photo, who identified herself as Beatriz de Novaes Boldo. “Yes, it’s me in the picture. But I don’t work at TSE. I don’t know, anyway, I’ve never worked, I have no connection with the TSE. The photo was a family barbecue on the day of the first round of elections. She was posted on an aunt’s social network, but she ended up excluding it in the face of repercussion. I’m a pharmacist, I work in the industry, I have nothing to do with TSE or Ludmila,” said Beatriz, adding that the surname “Boldo”, in common with Ludmila, is purely coincidental.

Beatriz said she intends to file a lawsuit against the person responsible for the false publication. She forwarded to Comprova notarial ata registered in a notary’s office, last Friday (28/10), with the print of the false post and the statement that the publications are defamatory.

TSE claims that the woman in the image is not a servant

In note sent to Comprovathe TSE said that the woman in the picture not part of the frame of Electoral Justice officials. The same information was released in clarification note on the court’s website. The advisory also forwarded a link to Ludmila’s appointment, published on August 26, 2022. The document shows that she is a servant of the Court of Justice of the State of São Paulo (TJ-SP) and is assigned to the TSE.

Ludmila’s name appears in page on the TSE portal, which shows the organization chart of the institution. She is also named on the court’s list of civil servants, available on the Transparency Portal. On the other hand, Beatriz’s name was not found on any of these pages.

why do we investigate: Comprova investigates suspicious content that goes viral on social media about the presidential elections, the realization of public works and the pandemic. The team focuses on viral publications, which have had great reach on social media and can confuse the population. In the context of elections in Brazil, many contents are released with the aim of disrupting the process, the propagation of disinformation tends to delegitimize the system and prevents voters from making their decision based on true information.

Other checks on the topic: The Electoral Justice, through the Fact or Rumor, stated that the woman who appears with a red ornament and makes a symbol of a candidate does not belong to his staff. O Estadão Verifies denied that eight radio stations in the Northeast have confirmed that TSE has stopped transmitting Bolsonaro’s campaign materials.

On the topic of elections, Comprova recently showed that the Lula’s government plan does not propose measures such as new CPMF, PIX taxation and savings freeze is that Video Misleads Using Bolsonaro’s 2006 Speech to Suggest He Advocates Abortion.

Investigated by: O Popular, O Dia and Correio; Verified by: Tribuna do Norte, Uol, Correio, Correio Braziliense, Estado de Minas, A Gazeta, CNN Brasil, Metrópoles, Rádio Band News FM and Folha de S.Paulo