Marielle Franco #character_assassination campaign begins | News | World | M&G
▻https://mg.co.za/article/2018-03-21-marielle-franco-character-assassination-campaign-begins
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“Check out the left’s latest myth, Marielle Franco. Pregnant at 16, ex-wife of Marcinho VP, she used marijuana…, was elected by the Red Command, had just fired six employees,” tweeted congressman Alberto Fraga, from the small, rightwing DEM party.
The story about Franco’s deep criminal past flooded the internet, often expressed in furious language, but lent gravitas by the likes of Fraga.
A Rio appeals’ court judge called Marilia Castro Neves warned on Facebook that Franco “wasn’t just a fighter.”
No, she “was involved with bandits” and was killed because “she didn’t carry out her promises.”
Startling stuff. Shocking.
And totally fake.
#fake_news …
And the traditional media, which Costa says has “the tools to check rumors very quickly,” also joined the cause.
Globo newspaper, part of Brazil’s dominant media conglomerate, ran a full page Tuesday to shoot down the rumors, under the headline: “Lies cannot stop justice.”
Fraga deleted his tweet.
“The regret, perhaps, is having put something that I didn’t check,” said Fraga. “I am a police officer, a military colonel, I should have had better information and from an appropriate source.”
As for the judge, she says she wishes she had decided “to wait for the end of the investigation, so as to be able, as a citizen, to give my opinion.”
Just what a manual on combating fake news might have advised.