"Don't turn your car into a weapon, the victim could be you." This slogan was endlessly repeated in the 1970s, a time when even the military dictatorship understood a weapon as something dangerous, which sooner or later turns against whoever owns it. Decades of engineering and legislation have made cars much safer. The rest are as reckless as ever.

Political violence, as current days show, is practiced using guns and knives, but not only that. The device that inhabits every purse and pocket in the country, in greater numbers than its inhabitants, spreads misinformation, hate speech and dog whistles, and messages that only make sense to those already converted. Cell phones, when misused, cause huge damage, almost always of a systemic nature.

Last week, the thesis was illustrated by a regrettable episode in the audience of the debate between candidates for the government of São Paulo. A state deputy and a journalist faced each other, cell phones in hand, held apart by a security guard. The scene is bizarre, not only because of the gratuitous offense offered by the Bolsonarista politician and the fair indignation of the reporter but also because of their strange ballet with arms outstretched in search of the best framing for themselves and the opponent, necessary for recording the attack on one side and for denouncing the attack on the other. When a second journalist snatches the cell phone from the deputy's hand and throws the device away, the fight ends as if by magic. The politician yells something like "what did you do?" and leaves. Without a cell phone, the thing is no longer fun.

Tarcísio Freitas, responsible for the troublemaker's presence at the scene, set up an immediate damage-control operation. Hours after the commotion, in the middle of the morning of Wednesday (14), the news of his apology to Vera Magalhães in Folha already had more readers than the news of the aggression. Eduardo Bolsonaro sympathized with the journalist. The Alesp ( Legislative Assembly of the State of São Paulo), with its dubious history regarding abusers, opened a debate for Douglas Garcia's punishment. Leão Serva, the misogynist cell phone confiscator, became a champion on social media.

In an interview with Folha, the director of TV Cultura said that "defending a woman from aggression is a moral imposition", but that getting physically involved in confrontation is a mistake. In her column in O Globo, Vera wrote that "something is very wrong with democracy when journalists become the subject". In fact, democracy is currently taking a beating in this country, and choosing violence can be tempting. This is precisely what the aggressors are looking for. Journalists fight in the shadows, but someone needs to be left standing to tell the story.

DATACOUP

Of the many dog whistles activated by Bolsonarism at the moment, one of the most eloquent refers to opinion polls. Haunted by the bad numbers for his campaign, Jair Bolsonaro and allies disdain serious institutes and allude to the 7 September crowds and flags planted here and there to show that they are many. Surveys with dubious results also help in the effort to, further down the road, if necessary, have arguments to accuse problems in the investigation, a coup-mongering path by nature. There are other risks, however.

Until last week, the most pronounced differences could be found between the surveys of traditional companies and those of newer ones, supported by financial agents. The last round, however, showed a discrepancy in the voting intentions for the Rio de Janeiro government collected by Datafolha and Ipec, the two most respected names in the market.

Perhaps that is why O Globo, on Friday (16), published a detailed report on the different criteria used by different research institutes. Some collect data at voters' homes, some at places of flow, others by telephone. There are different samples too. The calibration of the range up to two minimum wages would vary by more than 10 percentage points from one company to another, something that became a debate on social media and, of course, fuel for fake news.

The daily newspaper from Rio also defended, in an editorial, that polling companies should start adopting abstention calculations, something that is common in places like the US, where voting is not mandatory. As it is increasingly easier not to vote in Brazil, absences may have even more relevance this year.

Despite having reported on the harassment of Datafolha researchers in some parts of the country, Folha does not seem too concerned with the discussion regarding the institutes. On Friday night (16), it published a quick article to say that companies' methodologies are different and that social networks only discuss "conspiracy theories".

It's true, but the worst of them will come as a tsunami if Bolsonaro performs better on the actual voting days than indicated in the polls. Saving in transparency and didacticism, at this moment, does not seem like an adequate strategy.

_{Translated by Cassy Dias}