Meta tells Brazil’s electoral court it treats Lula and Bolsonaro equally

Meta has told Brazil’s electoral court that it treats the campaigns of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro equally, as the US technology group works to meet a court deadline five days before the presidential run-off on October 25.

In a filing to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) on October 20, Meta said the equal treatment required by electoral law applied to “rules and criteria, not results.” The company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said it would comply fully with the court’s orders. It reserved the right, however, to seek specific revisions through legal channels on technical and legal grounds.

The submission followed a ruling on October 18 by Justice Marco Aurélio Bellizze, who found Meta’s earlier response insufficient. He gave the company 24 hours to prove it had complied and threatened to raise its daily fine for non-compliance to BRL$1mn (around $200,000).

The court’s order sets out 17 requirements. They include applying the same criteria to both candidates when distributing political content, having humans review any automated restrictions on the candidates’ advertising accounts, and disclosing how the Meta AI assistant handles election-related requests.

Meta said that until polling day any automated restriction on either candidate’s advertising account would be reviewed by a person within two hours. It has also introduced a whitelist for political advertising to stop third parties buying such ads, and said a review of 255 profiles found no evidence that they were fake or acting in a coordinated way.

The company blamed technical limitations for one of the most contested issues, collaborative posts on Instagram. It said it could not remove such a post from recommendations on a candidate’s official profile while keeping it eligible on a co-author’s account, so it had stopped recommending these posts altogether. Meta said it had lifted restrictions on the official accounts of candidates eliminated in the first round, and asked to meet Bellizze’s office on October 20 to explain its documentation.

The case began with complaints from Lula’s campaign, which has also gone to the Federal Police, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and the United Nations. It alleges that Meta restricted the reach of pro-Lula content while giving Bolsonaro’s accounts preferential recommendations. The campaign has called for an investigation into possible unlawful campaign financing and asked for Meta’s internal communications and data to be preserved.

The campaign says Lula’s official Instagram account was blocked from promoting posts on October 9 and 10, and that his account and those of other left-wing figures briefly disappeared from Instagram’s search function before the first round. Concerns grew after Meta AI declined a request for a campaign image bearing Lula’s name and ballot number but produced a campaign-style poster for Bolsonaro, in a test reported by Agência Brasil. Meta said it had temporarily barred its AI from recommending candidates or generating images of them.

The dispute now runs in both directions. On October 19, Éden Valadares, communications secretary of Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT), accused Meta of ignoring the court’s rulings. Bolsonaro’s campaign filed its own complaint last week, accusing the company of negligence and of allowing paid negative ads against him to spread.

Meta denies any political bias. It says the incidents cited resulted from technical disruptions, automated safeguards and regulatory requirements, not deliberate interference. Brazilian electoral rules bar AI providers from recommending or prioritising candidates.

The stakes are high because the race is so close. Flavio Bolsonaro, a senator and the eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, won 47.03% of valid votes in the October 4 first round, against 45.16% for Lula, who is seeking a nonconsecutive fourth term. Flavio's father is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for leading a coup plot following his 2022 election defeat to Lula. Two polls published on October 13 showed a statistical tie. PoderData/AYA gave Bolsonaro 51% of valid votes to Lula’s 49%, and BTG/Nexus put the race at 52% to 48%.

Meta is not the only platform under scrutiny. On October 14, the TSE gave Google Brazil 24 hours to respond to claims that its AI tools had attributed false statements on organised crime and terrorism to Lula. Lula’s campaign has also said it will take its case against Meta to Brazil’s National Data Protection Authority.