On Monday, 19 October, Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) gave Meta 24 hours to show that its platforms do not favour either side in the presidential runoff. The company runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and the court wants proof that it treats the campaigns of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro alike in feeds, recommendations and search results. The order was issued by Judge Marco Aurélio Bellizze. If Meta cannot show compliance in time, the daily fine rises from 500,000 reais to 1 million reais, which press conversions put at roughly 185,000 to 200,000 dollars. The judge's order was also described as a response to the court's earlier failure to secure compliance.
The clash began with complaints from both campaigns. Lula's campaign says Meta kept his profile from being fully promoted on Instagram and out of search results, and that moderators remove posts by his supporters in disproportionate numbers while allowing content that promotes his rival. Flávio Bolsonaro's campaign, run by the Liberal Party (PL), also says the platform harms its content and asked the court to guarantee equal conditions. Meta has denied favouring either candidate. It acknowledged that some of Lula's campaign ads were taken offline temporarily because of technical errors, which it described as 'incidents' that did not affect Brazil alone.
On Thursday, 15 October, a TSE judge ordered Meta to apply the same rules to both candidates until the runoff. The order barred the company from unevenly reducing the reach, recommendations or search results of electoral content, and from favouring either candidate with its artificial intelligence tool. The full court endorsed that order on Friday, 16 October. Lula's party has also taken the matter to the Organization of American States, and Lula has warned about 'algorithmic selectivity' in WhatsApp's AI tool, which he says refuses to generate content favourable to him but not to Flávio Bolsonaro.
In its new decision, the court concluded that Meta had not shown it had carried out most of the earlier orders, and that the deadlines for those orders had already passed. The judge said there were not yet enough grounds to conclude that the company had deliberately manipulated the distribution of content, but found that Meta had not satisfactorily proved compliance. The court also objected that Meta had assumed the power to change deadlines set by the court when it asked for more time.
Among the requirements are explanations of how Meta's recommendation systems work, an analysis of the advertisements of both presidential candidates, an investigation of possible networks of fake profiles, and information about content that should have been labelled because it was artificially produced or altered. The court's order put the failure in blunt terms.
“The continued noncompliance, just a few days before the run-off election, demonstrates that the fine imposed was insufficient.”
Lula, nearly 81, is seeking a fourth term against Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, a right-wing senator. Flávio is the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is in prison after his conviction for an attempted coup. Flávio finished first in the first round on 4 October with 47% of the vote, against 45% for Lula, and neither candidate passed the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff. Polls released before the vote differ on the margin: one shows Flávio at 51% against 49% for Lula, while others describe the race as a technical tie. The runoff is scheduled for Sunday, 25 October.
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Brazil's top electoral court doubled Meta's daily fine on Monday, 19 October, and gave the company 24 hours to prove it treats Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro equally before the 25 October runoff.
AI text based on reports by Al Jazeera Online, Adnkronos, eldiario.es and other publishers. Published .