Social Media: Far Right vs Wrong?

This summer, social media platforms erupted over the gaping disparity in public response between the Notre Dame fire and the Amazon fires. Many took to social media to swiftly condemn the endless airtime and donations Notre Dame’s cause has received, advocating for a wider recognition and intensified response to the fires still devastating the Amazon rainforest to date. One tumblr user mused it was “interesting” that the world’s billionaires were so diligent in donating to the rebuilding of “a church in France,” yet there was no equivalent response to the Amazon fires. Comparing between the two respective fires is useful to an extent, but the fact of the matter is that multiple forces were at play for the poor public response to the Amazon fires that were not focused on or explored by social media users.

What was missing from the 280-character text posts was the appropriate analysis behind the environmental disaster that was the Amazon fires.

It took 3 minutes after the flames began to creep up the spire of the Notre Dame for over 100 news channels to air their Notre Dame segments. The Amazon rainforest burned for 3 weeks in the largest fire rampage ever recorded before it was broadcasted on mainstream media channels like, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. Even then, the Amazon fire coverage peaked at a measly 11 segments per day as compared to the 150 mentions per day of the Notre Dame fire. This rightly warranted global outrage; people took to social media to drum up awareness of the Amazon fires through various hashtags, Instagram stories, and tweets.

Another source of upset was the fact that Notre Dame received almost $2 billion in donations in the span of 48 hours from billionaires and transnational organizations alike. Social media users compared Notre Dame’s donations to the $20 million in aid given towards the Amazon from the G7 committee, members of which include: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K, and the U.S. They argued that those who donated to Notre Dame should extend the same courtesy to the environmental catastrophe in Brazil. The Amazon is the lungs of the Earth, and as such, it should be treated with the same urgency as the Notre Dame was.

Those who donated to Notre Dame should extend the same courtesy to the more important cause: our environment.

What was missing from the 280-character tweets was the appropriate analysis behind the environmental disaster that was the Amazon fires. Short, punchy text posts criticizing the billionaires who “emptied their pockets” for the rebuilding of the Notre Dame were no better than the vague and fleeting headlines on mainstream news segments. The social media advocacy for the wider acknowledgement of the Amazon fires focused too much on comparing public responses to Notre Dame, and failed to include information about the far-right Brazilian government that played a key role in the fires and lack of public response. 

The Amazon fires are not a spontaneous and unfortunate accident like the Notre Dame; they are in fact an economically charged act by far-right Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro. Since Bolsonaro took office in January, there has been a 39% increase in the loss of forest cover since 2018. Bolsonaro’s personal ideological opposition to the West has caused the suffering of countless indigenous and urban populations and has caused the reversal of climate change policies reliant on the survival of the Amazon. According to Matias Spektor, a leading International Relations professor at a university in São Paulo, Bolsonaro “deeply, ideologically, believes that environmentalism is part of a left-wing view of the world.” This has resulted in Bolsonaro gutting the environmental ministry, vacating half of this section’s positions. As part of his election campaign, the Brazilian president promised to decrease the areas of protection that cover the Amazon, remove the fines associated with violating environmental protectionist law, and ward off the NGOs dedicated to protecting the Amazon. His government purposefully waited to pass legislation that would abolish the protection of indigenous territories and vast amounts of forest in order to avoid international attention. Bolsonaro also rejected multiple financial aid packages from the G7 committee, the Amazon Fund, and even general aid offers from countries like the U.K and Germany, claiming it an infringement upon Brazil’s sovereignty. This is the background that was left out of many of the social media posts advocating for greater attention to global climate change.

This is a political issue, and only when this is realized, can we truly affect change through social media.

The social media presence, so passionate about the Amazon fires, directed too much of its focus on creating a parallel between the Notre Dame and the Amazon Fires.

Bolsonaro’s regime has been severely detrimental to the progression of climate change policies in Brazil, and will no doubt continue in this. The tool of social media advocacy proved powerful this summer by increasing the awareness of the Amazon fires. Yet, the direction of people’s outrage was somewhat misplaced and, if directed towards the true root of this disaster, it could be that much more powerful.