Tech giant Meta denied accusations Friday that it acted with political bias during Brazil’s presidential campaign, less than a day after the country’s electoral court ruled the platform must give equal treatment to incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and opposition candidate Flávio Bolsonaro ahead of their October 25 runoff.
It insisted its systems do not distribute content based on political ideology and emphasised that rules are applied equally. The company said it had two global technical disruptions earlier in October: one froze view counts on Instagram Reels across more than 100 countries while content distribution remained normal, and another briefly disrupted ad creation from existing Instagram posts in one of its tools for one day.
Meta said in response that a series of recent platform issues stemmed from unrelated global technical glitches, strict anti-fraud measures, and regulatory compliance rather than targeted suppression.
Addressing the Lula campaign’s concerns regarding Meta AI, the company explained that a loophole involving generic first names combined with electoral numbers briefly prevented some users from generating images of the president, while still allowing them to do so for Flávio Bolsonaro for another day. “Brazilian voters deserve facts, not a political narrative constructed by combining unrelated technical issues. “Meta applies the same rules to all candidates, parties, and political viewpoints in Brazil, just as it does for elections worldwide. We do not suppress content to disadvantage any side, nor do we grant preferential treatment to any side. Each of the incidents cited by the Lula campaign has a direct and documented explanation, as described above. None of them reflect political bias,” it added.
Since taking office in 2023, Lula has enacted online protections for women and minors, issued decrees on platform accountability, and partnered with the Supreme Court to hold companies liable for illegal content and misinformation. Adding to Meta’s challenges in Brazil, a study released this week by a research group at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro revealed that the platform allowed at least 1,613 irregular political ads — totaling 171 million views and generating roughly 2 million reais ($400,000) in revenue between July and September — funded primarily from the United States.
Meta will continue to enforce its rules, comply with Brazilian electoral legislation, correct errors when they occur, and ensure a level playing field for everyone who uses our services,” Meta said.
Platforms like Google, Meta and TikTok since last year have to monitor and remove hate speech, racism and incitement to violence in Brazil.
