The attack against Jair Bolsonaro last Thursday (06) represented an intense change in the engagements and positions of the profiles discussing the presidential hopefuls of Twitter before the stabbing. Many accounts that had been discussing the presidential race the week before left the debate, and also other accounts, which had not been taking part until then, began interacting about the theme on the networks due to what happened to Bolsonaro.

Support of political fields by profiles
Befor: Aug 28 – Sep 4 | After: Sep 8 – Sep 9

Source: Twitter | Elaborated by: FGV DAPP

NOTE: a small number of profiles in the bigger groups that were absent from the debate may also have migrated to other smaller groups in the graph, which are not displayed in this view.

To identify this movement, FGV DAPP analyzed the four main groups of debate about the presidential hopefuls on Twitter in two different period: the week immediately before the attack (August 28 to September 04) and the 48 hours between Saturday (08) at 9 a.m. and Monday (10) at 9 a.m. In total, 410 thousand profiles left the political debate from one period to the other (out of 821.6 thousand accounts present in the four biggest groups in the graph before the attack); and 118 thousand new accounts appeared after the attack, joining the discussions of the main sides of alignment in the network.