Lisbon, Nov. 19, 2024 (Lusa) - MediaLab researchers detected illegal paid adverts published on the social networks Facebook and Youtube during the March legislative elections in Portugal that tarnished the image of PS and PSD politicians, according to an analysis published on Iberifier's website.
"The monitoring work carried out by ISCTE - IUL's MediaLab researchers on the political content and disinformation disseminated during the campaign for the March 2024 legislative elections detected illegal paid adverts published on the Facebook and Youtube platforms that disparaged the image of Socialist Party (PS) and Social Democratic Party (PSD) politicians," says the analysis.
One of the messages, "displayed on Youtube, showed newspaper front pages in a decontextualised way, associating the current and former leaders of the Socialist Party with corruption", and "the name of the channel showing the video was 'Bolsonaristas em Portugal'".
The investigation project took place between 1st February and 6th March.
The researchers also detected "a second political advertisement" on YouTube, "an advertisement with a higher level of production which criticised the PSD".
In this case, "the name of the channel that hosted the video was 'Jovens por Portugal'" (Young People for Portugal).
These conclusions are contained in the report "Legislative elections 2024, Amplification of online political discourse and disinformation", available on the EISifier website.
The third irregular advertisement was detected on Facebook, "in the form of sponsored posts on the 'International News' page", targeting "Luís Montenegro, leader of the PSD, and Pedro Passos Coelho, former leader of the PSD at the time of the 'troika' intervention in Portugal".
In total, the publications (‘posts’) "reached around two million accounts, with only one of the publications reaching more than one million accounts", and it is estimated that the "amount invested in this illegal advertising operation was €12,000 in three days and the advertisers may have reached around 22% of the Portuguese electorate in the middle of the election campaign period".
The monitoring of political content and disinformation on social networks in the run-up to the legislative elections led to the conclusion, among other things, that "Facebook has ceased to be the predominant social network for the dissemination of political content" and "Instagram has gained relevance in particular".
Facebook and X "continue to be the networks most used by political actors, but Instagram is the network that gives them the most reach and impact" and "TikTok is still little used by political actors, but it shows a potential reach and impact that could lead to intensive use in the future," it says.
Twitter/X is the social network "with the greatest penetration of political topics and the one most frequented by politicians and those interested in politics", but "reveals little reach and impact outside this 'media and political bubble'".
Another of the conclusions is that "it is the political agents themselves who amplify the messages that suit them, even in cases where the messages may be disinformative" and that the right wing Chega party and its leader "have managed to mobilise social networks to spread their message, revealing a higher rate of interaction with users and average interaction of posts than their competitors".
Political content "is far from being the favourite content of social media users, given the attention they pay to it".
Another of the conclusions is that "it is the content relating to politicians that escapes the traditional channels (and formats) that best results in capturing attention on social networks, namely entertaining interviews or humorous content".
This research was coordinated by Gustavo Cardoso, full professor at ISCTE - IUL, and head of Iberifier in Portugal, and carried out by researchers from MediaLab, the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, CIES.
The work also involved a partnership with Agência Lusa and the Observatório da Comunicação, Obercom.
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