According to FGV DAPP, the major social networks registered an explosion of engagement regarding the 15M (May 15) demonstrations, starting on February 25 at night, when the first news was published about president Bolsonaro sharing a video on WhatsApp supporting the acts;

There was a 550% increase in the number of mentions to the demonstrations on Twitter in 48 hours: on February 24, there were 127 thousand mentions to the protests, increasing to 231 thousand the following day (almost double), and reaching 830 thousand on February 26;

Discussions about the press, journalists and news coverage of the federal government, which had almost no association with the topic until February 25, reached 173 thousand mentions on February 26 – corresponding to 21% of the total;

Daily mentions to the May 15 demonstrations on Twitter

The episode also showed a change in the tone of the call to action. While, until Tuesday, the main hashtag was #dia15pelobrasil (“day 15 for Brazil”) with 63 thousand mentions, the emphasis from Wednesday on changed to the hashtag #euapoiobolsonaro (“I support Bolsonaro”), with 188 thousand mentions (followed by #dia15brasilnasruas, “day 15, Brazil on the streets”, with 168 thousand);

On Facebook, the overall volume of interactions registered an increase of over 1,400% in 48 hours. With 490 thousand interactions (including interactions, comments and shares) on February 24, the related links registered 3.3 million interactions on February 25 and 7.4 million on February 26.

On WhatsApp, a monitoring of political groups also identified a significant increase in calls to action for the demonstrations; a sample of 90.3 thousand messages in 64 groups from February 21 to 27 registered 125 posts about the protests on February 24, 98 on February 25 and 507 on February 56.