The Human Infrastructure of Misinformation
A case study of Brazil’s heteromated labor
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18617/liinc.v21i1.7574Keywords:
infrastructure, misinformation, elections, heteromation, BrazilAbstract
As the information landscape continues to evolve, the widespread dissemination of disinformation is proliferating at a rate and scale never before seen in a democratic society. In recent years, major technology companies have taken much of the public blame for this reality, given their algorithms facilitate the sharing of—and sometimes even promote—falsehoods. This, however, misses a key reality; social media, search engines, and messaging services are not fully automated technologies. Rather, they are heteromated: they are reliant on participatory humans to serve their economic goals. Focusing on users, and on the sharing, rather than the origination, of disinformation, we connect theories of heteromation with those surrounding the Human Infrastructure of Misinformation (HIM) with the express purpose of contributing to a more holistic understanding of how and why misinformation is so prevalent online.
References
Bailey, D. E.; Diniz, E. H.; Nardi, B. A.; Leonardi, P. M. & Sholler, D. (2018). A critical approach to human helping in information systems: Heteromation in the Brazilian correspondent banking system. Information and Organization, 28(3), 111-128.
Canet, F. (2019). Documenting atrocities around the world: Why engage with the perpetrators? International Journal of Cultural Studies, 22(6), 804—822. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1367877919840042
DiFranzo, D. & Gloria-Garcia, K. (2017). Filter bubbles and fake news. XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students, 23(3), 32-35.
Dye, M.; Nemer, D.; Mangiameli, J.; Bruckman, A. S. & Kumar, N. (abril, 2018). El Paquete Semanal: The Week's Internet in Havana. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-12).
Ekbia, H. R., & Nardi, B. (2014). Heteromation and its (dis) contents: The invisible division of labor between humans and machines. First Monday 19(6)
Ekbia, H. R., & Nardi, B. A. (2017). Heteromation, and other stories of computing and capitalism. MIT Press.
Ekbia, H. R., & Nardi, B. A. (2019). Keynes's grandchildren and Marx's gig workers: Why human labour still matters. International Labour Review, 158(4), 653-676.
Fletcher, R. (2020). The Truth behind Filter Bubbles: Bursting Some Myths. RISJ Review. Disponível em: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/risj-review/truth-behind-filter-bubbles-bursting-some-myths
Flynn, L. (13 de abril, 2004). Google Says It Doesn’t Plan to Change Search Results. The New York Times. Disponível em: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/business/google-says-it-doesn-t-plan-to-change-search-results.html
G1. (3 de outubro, 2018). “Datafolha: Quantos Eleitores de Cada Candidato Usam Redes Sociais, Leem e Compartilham Notícias Sobre Política.” Globo.com. Disponível em: https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2018/eleicao-em-numeros/noticia/2018/10/03/datafolha-quantos-eleitores-de-cada-candidato-usam-redes-sociais-leem-e-compartilham-noticias-sobre-politica.ghtml
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. University of California Press
IBGE. (16 de outubro, 2019). PNAD Contínua 2018: 10% da população concentram 43,1% da massa de rendimentos do país. Agência IBGE Notícias. Disponível em: https://agenciadenoticias.ibge.gov.br/agencia-sala-de-imprensa/2013-agencia-de-noticias/releases/25700-pnad-continua-2018-10-da-populacao-concentram-43-1-da-massa-de-rendimentos-do-pais
Irani, L. (2019). Justice for data janitors. In Think in Public (pp. 23-40). Columbia University Press.
Jack, M.; Chen, J. & Jackson, S. J. (maio, 2017). Infrastructure as creative action: Online buying, selling, and delivery in Phnom Penh. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 6511-6522).
Jin, F.; Dougherty, E.; Saraf, P.; Cao, Y. & Ramakrishnan, N. (agosto, 2013). Epidemiological modeling of news and rumors on Twitter. In Proceedings of the 7th workshop on social network mining and analysis (pp. 1-9).
Katz, E. & Lazarsfeld. P. F. (1966). Personal Influence, the Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications. A Report of the Bureau of Applied Social Research. Columbia University Free Press.
Laney, D. (3 de maio, 2012). To Facebook You're Worth $80.95. The Wall Street Journal. Disponível em: https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-CIOB-298
Marks, W. (2021). De-platforming Is a Fix, But Only a Short-Term One. Just Security. Disponível em: https://www.justsecurity.org/74342/de-platforming-is-a-fix-but-only-a-short-term-one/
Macedo, I. (26 de outubro, 2018). “Das 123 Fake News Encontradas Por Agências de Checagem, 104 Beneficiaram Bolsonaro.” Congresso Em Foco, UOL. Disponível em: https://congressoemfoco.uol.com.br/eleicoes/das-123-fake-news-encontradas-por-agencias-de-checagem-104-beneficiaram-bolsonaro/
Mena, Paul. "Cleaning up social media: The effect of warning labels on likelihood of sharing false news on Facebook." Policy & Internet 12, no. 2 (2020): 165-183.
Moysés, A. (19 de setembro, 2018). “‘Eleitor Típico de Bolsonaro é Homem Branco, de Classe Média e Superior Completo.’” CartaCapital. Disponível em: https://www.cartacapital.com.br/politica/eleitor-tipico-de-bolsonaro-e-homem-branco-de-classe-media-e-superior-completo/.
Nemer, D. (16 de agosto, 2019). WhatsApp Is Radicalizing the Right in Bolsonaro’s Brazil. HuffPost. Disponível em: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brazil-jair-bolsonaro-whatsapp_n_5d542b0de4b05fa9df088ccc
Nemer, D. (2021a). The Human Infrastructure of Fake News in Brazil. Social Science Research Council: Items.
Nemer, D. (2021b). Tecnologia do oprimido: Desigualdade e o mundano digital nas favelas do Brasil. Editora Milfontes.
Nguyen, L. U. (2016). Infrastructural action in Vietnam: Inverting the techno-politics of hacking in the global South. New Media & Society, 18(4), 637-652.
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. NYU Press.
Omari, J. (2020). Is facebook the internet? ethnographic perspectives on open internet governance in brazil. Law & Social Inquiry, 45(4), 1093-1112.
Ong, J. & Cabañes, J. (2019). When Disinformation Studies Meets Production Studies: Social Identities and Moral Justifications in the Political Trolling Industry. International Journal Of Communication, 13, 20. Disponível em: https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/11417/2879
Pariser, E. (2011). The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think. Penguin.
Sambasivan, N., & Smyth, T. (2010). The human infrastructure of ICTD. In Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE international conference on information and communication technologies and development (pp. 1-9).
Sambasivan, N.; Kapania, S.; Highfill, H.; Akrong, D.; Paritosh, P. & Aroyo, L. M. (maio, 2021). “Everyone wants to do the model work, not the data work”: Data Cascades in High-Stakes AI. In proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-15).
Schipani, A., & Leahy, L. (2018). "Brazil’s Bolsonaro aims to rule with ‘bull, bullet and bible’ bloc." Financial Times. Disponível em: https://www.ft.com/content/611f150e-cb51-11e8-b276-b9069bde0956
Shimer, David. Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference. Vintage, 2021.
Silverstone, R. (2007). Media and morality: On the rise of the mediapolis. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Spohr, D. (2017). Fake news and ideological polarization: Filter bubbles and selective exposure on social media. Business information review, 34(3), 150-160.
Tardáguila, C.; Benevenuto, F. & Ortellado, P. (17 de agosto, 2018). “Fake News Is Poisoning Brazilian Politics. WhatsApp Can Stop It.” New York Times. Disponível em: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/opinion/brazil-election-fake-news-whatsapp.html.Taylor,TinaLynn.2012.
Vaidhyanathan, S. (2018). Antisocial Media: How Facebook disconnects us and undermines democracy. Oxford University Press.
Zittrain, J. (2008). The future of the internet--and how to stop it. Yale University Press.
Zittrain, J. (2 de outubro, 2019). Three Eras of Digital Governance. SSRN. Disponível em: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3458435.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 David Nemer, William Marks
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
Authors retain copyright and grant Liinc em Revista the right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The authors have permission and are encouraged to deposit their manuscripts and versios of record (VoR) in their personal web pages or institutional repositories, generic repositories etc., before (pre-print) or after (post-print) the publication in Liinc em Revista, according to its open access depositing policy registered in the Directory of Editorial Policies of Brazilian Journals (DIADORIM), kindly providing a link to the article published on Liinc's website.
Liinc em Revista, published by Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License – CC BY 4.0 
