Without X, electoral campaigns in Brazil are forced to adapt and seek new networks

In the first Brazilian electoral campaign in more than a decade without X, formerly Twitter, candidates’ marketing teams had to adapt to the suspension of the social network and admit that, even without impacts that could change the course of the elections, there were losses in a increasingly digital political dispute.

Despite not being the most used in the country, and having been losing users in recent years, Twitter was a fundamental social network for keeping tabs on voters’ reactions — what is going viral, people’s reactions to candidates’ posts and speeches , according to strategists.

Former deputy Manuela D’Ávila, who now looks after the social networks of Guilherme Boulos, PSOL candidate for mayor of São Paulo, explains that the federal deputy had a very engaged account on X, with more than 1.5 million followers , and where there was the possibility of posts with immediate repercussions.

“There is a loss of the public that forms a lot of opinion, that follows it very closely, and that creates a much quicker repercussion. There is a loss in that sense”, he states.

Billionaire Elon Musk’s social network was banned in Brazil at the end of August by order of the Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Alexandre de Moraes, in a decision later confirmed unanimously by the First Panel of the court. The sanction stems from a long and public clash between Moraes and Musk, who repeatedly refused to comply with court orders in Brazil.

This Friday, X reported that it had paid R$28.6 million in fines established by the magistrate and requested permission to resume operating in Brazil. The final decision on the return of the social network, however, remains pending.

Publicist Sérgio Lima, who was part of former president Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign in 2022 and is currently responsible for five Republican campaigns in the interior of São Paulo, also assesses that the removal of X from the air had an impact on the campaigns’ ability to evaluate.

Lima states that the network is the one that best manages, using geolocation data, to filter the issues under discussion in the electoral race, reaching, in his opinion, to give signals about the candidates’ voting intentions.

Furthermore, he explains, campaigns had to restructure themselves to make contact with the press, for example. Information such as candidates’ agendas, previously posted on Twitter, migrated back to email and networks such as WhatsApp.

Pablo Almada, sociologist and researcher at the Center for Violence Studies at the University of São Paulo (USP), explains that, despite X not having the largest network of users in the country, they were very engaged, which allowed for real-time reactions. and closer monitoring of the direction of the campaigns.

“We saw that, in a way, X worked as a kind of second screen. So, there would often be a debate on television, and there would be a large number of demonstrations carried out by X”, he said.

“It is much more difficult to monitor an election without X. We were better able to understand the temperature of the election, because you at least had opposing positions that could be viewed within the social network.”

Without the X, campaigns migrated their operations to other platforms, especially Instagram. This was the case of Guilherme Boulos, who already had a strong presence on the network, with 2.5 million followers. Ricardo Nunes (MDB), candidate for re-election in São Paulo, opened an account on the network.

Facebook, which had been somewhat forgotten in political debates in Brazil, also gained ground, with more posts made by candidates and a considerable increase in investment in advertisements by campaigns.

Bruno Oliveira, campaign manager in Natal (RN), explains that Facebook gained space because the platform is the only one, after the suspension of X, that accepts paid campaign ads, after Google decided that it would not do so.