Brazil court gives Meta 24 hours to prove equal treatment of Lula and Bolsonaro content
Brazil's top electoral court has ordered Meta to show within 24 hours that it is not favouring one presidential candidate over the other in how political content appears on its platforms. The Superior Electoral Court also doubled the daily fine for noncompliance, escalating a dispute that comes less than a week before Brazil's presidential run-off. The ruling centres on complaints from Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's campaign about how his content is being handled online.
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The court said the company must demonstrate that its content feeds are treating Lula and his rival, Flavio Bolsonaro, equally. In the order issued on Monday, a judge said the continued noncompliance so close to the vote showed the previous penalty had not been enough. The daily fine was raised from 500,000 Brazilian reais to 1 million reais, equivalent to about $200,000.
Lula's campaign has accused the platform of preventing his profile from being fully promoted on Instagram and from appearing in searches. It has also alleged that posts by his supporters are being removed more often, while material backing Bolsonaro or questioning the integrity of elections is allowed to remain online. Civil society groups and digital rights monitors have backed those claims, saying Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have suppressed content from the left-leaning candidate while boosting posts promoting Bolsonaro.
Meta has denied favouring either candidate, although it has said some of Lula's campaign advertisements were taken down temporarily because of technical errors. The company now faces a short deadline to persuade the court that its moderation and recommendation systems are being applied evenly. The case has become part of a wider debate in Brazil over how large platforms handle political speech during elections.
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The timing gives the ruling added significance because Brazilians are due to vote in a run-off on Sunday. Lula and Bolsonaro are separated by a narrow margin after the first round of voting on October 4, when Bolsonaro won 47 percent and Lula 45 percent. Neither candidate crossed the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a second round, and polling has suggested the contest remains extremely close.
What remains unclear is whether Meta will be able to satisfy the court before the deadline and whether the judge will impose further penalties if it does not. The order also leaves open how the court will assess claims about content promotion, search visibility and moderation decisions across Meta's services. With the vote approaching, the dispute is likely to remain a live issue in Brazil's election campaign and in broader arguments over platform neutrality.
