Government of Lula Dominates Social Media Debate on Tariff Issue

The recent days have seen an intense digital battle between the government under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the opposition led by Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. According to a unique analysis conducted by the Bites consultancy, pro-government publications garnered significantly more mentions and interactions on social media compared to those from groups aligned with the opposition during the tariff discussion. Between July 15 and 20, approximately 1.05 million posts related to the issue were recorded, with government-aligned profiles responsible for about half of these (430,000), generating more than 8 million interactions. This contrasts with the activities of opposition groups, which only produced 205,000 mentions on the subject, totaling around 4.4 million interactions.

The peak of the discussion occurred the day following the US government's announcement of the tariff by Donald Trump, when over 414,000 posts were registered. However, this figure is only a fraction of the peak reached last year during the same period, when about 1.2 million mentions were made. This scenario suggests that while the government succeeded in dominating the social media debate, the intensity of the discussion was lower than last year.

Source original: Valor Econômico