‘The Corruption Converter’ Shows Brazilians The True Value of Corruption Costs

Created by FCB Brasil for Estadão newspaper, the digital platform The Corruption Converter shows readers of the Estadão.com.br portal exactly how much corruption costs the Brazilian people.The tool allows users to calculate the benefits and services that could have been provided with the funds had they not been diverted because of corruption.

  

For example, the tool shows users that R$316 million of diverted funds could have purchased 2,257,142 doses of the H1N1 vaccine, 15,800 ambulances or 0.316 km (0.196 mi) of subway tracks.To complement this information, next to the amounts, the corruption currency converter shows news stories from the paper's website about situations where this money could have made a difference and improved people's lives.

 

The service started being tested in September 2016, to make sure everything worked perfectly, and went live in February of 2017, automatically converting the amounts mentioned in news pieces about corruption into tangible items including ambulances, doses of vaccines, school lunches, medication and sports courts, among others things. The tool also created interactive infographics. The nation-wide launch included newspaper ads and posters with examples of infographics of the amounts converted.

 

The code written into the portal monitors users on the website and "detects" when they are reading articles containing words related to corruption and politics, as well as figures in Reals (R$).If the article being read contains both these words and figures, it will be deemed "eligible," prompting the portal to highlight all of the relevant figures.As users mouse or swipe a finger over (in the mobile version) the numbers, a tooltip pops up suggesting items that could have been purchased with that amount.By selecting an item, the user is redirected to The Corruption Converter tool, which will then display the items, goods or improvements that could have been provided with the amount in question.

 

The tool is unprecedented in Brazil and abroad. It aims to make the numbers associated with corruption tangible and show the scope of the corruption."The goal is to help Brazilians understand how this money could have impacted their lives.It’s a new and procative way of providing information, we are using technology and innovation to go beyond news." states Marcelo Moraes, Marketing and Advertising Director at Estadão.