TheCarlos Bandeirense Mirandópolis hoax involved a false article created on thePortuguese Wikipedia. The "Carlos Bandeirense Mirandópolis" page was created in 2010 by two Brazilian lawyers who wanted to prank an intern. The article claimed that Mirandópolis—who never existed—was a Brazilian jurist and professor who had met the composerChico Buarque and participated in theDiretas Já movement. Mirandópolis ended up being cited in a decision by theRio de Janeiro Court of Justice [pt] (TJ-RJ), in a documentary about Diretas Já, and in an undergraduate thesis. The page was deleted in 2016 after a report was published on theG1 news portal and aired on theGloboNews television channel. Professors cited the case as a reason to be cautious with information found on the Internet.
The Carlos Bandeirense Mirandópolis hoax was created on the Portuguese Wikipedia on August 16, 2010, by two Brazilian lawyers, Victor Nóbrega Luccas and Daniel Tavela Luís. Realizing that it was common for interns to take information from the Internet without verification, they created the article to prank one of them. They asked the intern to research the "Public Association Offer" theory, which does not exist. To give more credibility to the false theory, they created a page for Mirandópolis, identifying him as its author.[1] According to the article, Mirandópolis was a jurist and professor at the Faculty of Law of thePontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP). He would have been persecuted during theBrazilian military dictatorship and exiled inParis. There, he would have met the composerChico Buarque and inspired his composition "Samba de Orly [pt]". The article also said that Mirandópolis later returned to Brazil and actively participated in theDiretas Já movement. The article included a photo of the mayor ofVienna,Michael Häupl, saying that it was a photo of Mirandópolis.[1]
During the article's existence, Mirandópolis was cited in the vote of a judge in a decision by theRio de Janeiro Court of Justice [pt] (TJ-RJ), in the documentaryDiretas Já, and in an undergraduate thesis.[1]
The hoax was revealed on February 23, 2016, through a report that was published onG1 and aired on theGloboNews television channel. They contacted PUC-SP, which said they never had a professor with that name, and also Chico Buarque's team, which said Buarque did not know Mirandópolis. Additionally, the report contacted TJ-RJ, which said that the mention made by the judge had sources from the memory center page of thePUC of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RJ) and theDiretas Já film.[1] However, PUC-RJ said that the information was not on their website.[2] TheG1 report was also covered in theMigalhas [pt] newspaper.[3] Victor Nóbrega said he was surprised by Mirandópolis's other mentions: "The thing took on a proportion that we never imagined. I expected it to appear on some blogs, but not in a more serious source. I laughed out loud. But, while it's funny on one hand, it's sad on the other because people are not using the Internet correctly."[1]
In its original article,G1 interviewed professors to comment on the case, who generally said that caution was necessary with information found on the Internet.[1] On the same day the report was published, the article was deleted by administrator Leon Saudanha. On February 24,G1 published comments from Saudanha and theWikimedia Foundation, which managesWikipedia, about the case.[4] In 2017, the case was mentioned in a doctoral thesis as an example of legalfake news[5] and by professors from theMackenzie Presbyterian University on their website, urging "caution with research sources".[6] Lawyer João Taborda da Gama, writing forDiário de Notícias on the topic "Can a judge cite Wikipedia?", cited Mirandópolis as an example to support his opinion that "it depends a lot on the purpose of the citation, never being able to be the sole source of a conclusion given the mutability andreliability of Wikipedia not being absolute".[7] In 2023, the name "Carlos Bandeirense Mirandópolis" was used as the complainant in aPublic Prosecutor's Office (MP) inquiry. When questioned, they said that "the identity of the representative is irrelevant since the MP investigates the facts and could act even on its own initiative".[8]
