Misleading: The videos published by a profile on TikTok that compare images of the acts of former President Lula (PT) and President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) on July 2 in Salvador (BA) are misleading. The images used to show the act with Bolsonaro were taken at a time when there were fewer people concentrated in the place, to convey the mistaken feeling of public failure.
Investigated Content: Two videos published on TikTok by a profile of a supporter of the Workers’ Party (PT) compare images of acts with former President Lula and President Jair Bolsonaro that took place on July 2, in the city of Salvador (BA). He starts the videos talking about “another DataPovo in Bahia” and then shows images of the act with Lula full of people and the act with Bolsonaro practically empty.
where it was published: TikTok.
Completion of Proof: Videos published by a PT supporter are misleading, comparing demonstrations in support of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and Jair Bolsonaro (PL) on July 2, in Salvador, Bahia.
With the caption “Bolsonaro’s motorcycle empty”, the content uses the image of a small agglomeration in Farol da Barra, but the event with Bolsonaro gathered a large audience. Videos from Jovem Pan News with the president speaking and live broadcasts on Bolsonaro’s official Facebook profile make it clear that the Farol region was full of people.
The image of the empty place was used in opposition to a photo of the demonstration in support of Lula, with thousands of people.
misleading, for Comprova, is all content taken from the original context and used in another so that its meaning undergoes changes; that uses inaccurate data or that leads to an interpretation different from the author’s intention; content that confuses, with or without the deliberate intent to cause harm.
Scope of publication: Comprova investigates suspicious content with greater reach on social networks. Together, the two videos verified here have more than 14,600 likes, 3,000 shares and 1,600 comments as of July 5th.
What the author of the publication says: The owner of the profile @Thiagodosreis8, which publishes content in support of Lula, did not respond to the report’s contact.
How do we check: First, it was necessary to find the origin of the images that appear in the post, since the author of the publication films the screen of another device that is displaying these images, while speaking. In the video of the act with Bolsonaro in which there is little concentration of people, it was possible to identify a watermark of the social network Kwai. By finding this profile on Kwai, it was possible to watch the original video.
The official profiles of Bolsonaro on Facebook and Lula on Twitter were consulted to find photos and videos of their respective acts in Salvador. Google searches were also carried out with the terms “Bolsonaro” and “Lula” + “atos Salvador” or “Bahia 2 de Julho” to find reports reflecting the events (such as G1, Sheet and Power 360).
Via TweetDeck, Comprova found tweets published on the 2nd about the act with Bolsonaro. One of them showed the screen of the Young Pan News. On the vehicle’s website, it was possible to search for the program that showed videos of the demonstration.
The Folha de S.Paulo photo collection was also consulted by the team to compare whether the images taken by the newspaper during the coverage of the act were similar or not to those shown in the TikTok post.
Image of the empty motorcycle is not from the same moment Bolsonaro was at the event
The original video with the photo showing the empty Bolsonaro event was published on the social network Kwai, on July 2, 2022 by the user @JuninhoCamacan. In the original video, the voice of the person filming can be heard saying, “July 2nd Saturday. Ó the bolsominion demonstration there”, in reference to the act with the presence of Bolsonaro, as he films the region of Farol da Barra, in Salvador, at a time when few people are concentrated in the place.
When we watch the live broadcasts of President’s official Facebook profile and in videos released in the program of the Young Pan News, it is possible to certify that the demonstration that had his presence took place in the same place, close to Farol da Barra and Avenida Oceânica, in Salvador. In one of the live streams posted on Bolsonaro’s profile that day, at 9:54 am, it is possible to see the president riding a motorcycle in the Farol da Barra region and surrounded by supporters. The audience’s presence is much higher compared to when the video posted on Kwai was recorded.
Thus, although the excerpt of the video verified here was made on the same day and place, the images were captured at different times. The video of the TikTok post was made when there was little concentration of people in the place. In the images released by the president’s profile, when he appears to the public, it is possible to see that the agglomeration of people around Farol da Barra is much greater.
The large concentration of supporters of President Bolsonaro in the July 2 act in Salvador can also be confirmed by images transmitted by Jovem Pan Newslike the one below:
Photo of Lula’s demonstration is real and is also from the same day
The image used in the TikTok post to illustrate how the demonstration with Lula was is also true, and was made in Salvador on July 2, as it is possible to compare with the record published in Folha made by photographer Rafael Martins, from UOL, at the time. It is possible to see the same house on the right, including the detail of the window on the right open.
It is also possible to observe that the image that appears in the TikTok video is the same one that was released on the social networks of former President Lula himself, on the 2nd of July (see here and here).
The photo shown in the video of the event with Lula, however, was the subject of controversy as soon as it was released. That’s because, in the lower right corner, some “duplicate” people appeared. Several reports (such as Sheet and Estadão) pointed out the problem that shows similar people in different movements in the photographs. Despite this, it is possible to notice that most of the photo does not have this problem.
The coordination of the act with Lula justified what happened as a characteristic bug of panoramic photos, and then the ex-president’s profile on Twitter posted a another version of the same photo, without the technical error. In testimonial to the G1 website, the photographer responsible for the image, Ricardo Stuckert, explained the flaw: “I took nine photos to get the full angle. And then what happens? When I was photographing, the drone is moving. Only people were messing around. What happened? People move it, it doubled, and when the software joins all nine photos to make this 180 degrees, it didn’t join properly because people moved. It was an overlay.”
According to UOLthis type of bug is normal, “since the panorama groups several photos at different angles, taken in a continuous movement”, according to two photographers who analyzed the images.
A video from the same location and angle of the photo was also published by Lula’s team, to affirm that there was no deliberate tampering with the images in order to “increase” the number of participants in the act.
From the images of the video verified here, it is not possible to identify if the author used the photo with the duplicate people or if it is the photo without the technical error. One way or another, the two images show thousands of people at the scene.
Pre-candidates in Salvador
Lula and Bolsonaro were not the only pre-candidates for the presidency to participate in rallies in Salvador on July 2. Ciro Gomes (PDT) and Simone Tebet (MDB) were also in the city, during the celebration of the Independence of Bahia.
With the exception of the current president, the other three politicians participated in a civic act which toured regions between Largo da Lapinha, in the Liberdade district, and Terreiro de Jesus, in Pelourinho.
Initially, Lula had been advised against going to the event, but changed his mind to oppose Bolsonaro, who participated in a motorcycle.
why do we investigate: Comprova investigates suspicious content that has gone viral on the internet and is related to the pandemic, public policies of the federal government and elections. The videos verified here involve the two main candidates for the presidential race and can lead the population to wrong analysis, influencing the voters’ decision at the time of the election.
Other checks on the topic: This week, the same act in Salvador was the subject of another check by Comprova, which classified it as misleading post that uses old video about joining the pro-Bolsonaro demonstration. Previously, the initiative found that Post used photo of acts without Lula’s presence to try to discredit election polls is that anti-Bolsonaro protest in Italy had no protesters sent by the PT.
Investigated by Folha de S.Paulo and Piauí. Verified by Estadão, Correio Braziliense, PLURAL Curitiba, O DIA and A Gazeta.
Source: CNN Brasil
