President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s campaign has accused Meta of election interference in Brazil’s presidential runoff, alleging that the company’s platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, restricted the reach of Lula’s content while favoring his opponent, Flavio Bolsonaro.
The campaign cited problems promoting posts, interruptions in video view counts and disparities in Meta’s AI image-generation tools. A justice at Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) ordered Meta to treat both candidates equally and not unjustifiably limit the reach of their political content. The court has since increased the daily fines for noncompliance.
Meta denied political bias, attributing the incidents to unrelated technical glitches, anti-fraud measures and system errors that affected users globally, not only in Brazil. The company said it is complying with the court orders.