Justice Marco Aurelio Bellizze of Brazil's Superior Electoral Court ruled on Thursday that Meta must not reduce the distribution of political content, restrict searches or remove posts in a way that creates an imbalance between Lula and right-wing challenger Senator Flavio Bolsonaro. The ruling also orders the company to ensure its artificial intelligence tool applies identical criteria to both candidacies, under a daily fine of 500,000 reais ($98,700) for non-compliance.
The ruling came hours after Lula filed a complaint accusing Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, of using biased algorithms and AI restrictions to favour Bolsonaro. According to Lula's party, some of his posts appeared without a share button and had reduced reach, with options for reactions, sharing, audio or accelerated speed missing.
On Friday, Brazilian daily Folha de S Paulo reported that internal Meta communications, which the paper said it had reviewed, acknowledged Lula's accounts were negatively affected by restrictions during the election and that the platform recommended Bolsonaro's profile and WhatsApp channel.
Meta told the Reuters news agency that the technical issues cited in the report were already public and that the conversations referenced related solely to the severity of the issues, not political interference. "Any suggestion that Meta favors one side is false," it added.
The two candidates will face each other in a presidential runoff on October 25, after Bolsonaro's stronger-than-expected performance in the first-round vote.