According to a report by AFP and CNN, the campaign team of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula accused tech giant Meta of interfering in the Brazilian presidential election by restricting the dissemination of its social media content. Meta denied these allegations.
The second round of the Brazilian presidential election is scheduled to take place on October 25. Luiz Inacio Lula, running for a fourth term as president, will compete against Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and a senator. In the first round of voting held on October 4, Flávio led Lula by about 47% of the votes.
According to a statement released by Lula's campaign team on the 10th, social media platforms under Meta such as Facebook and Instagram are suspected of restricting the dissemination of information related to Lula's campaign, putting him at a disadvantage in the election race.
The statement indicates that although Favio’s social media account has 17.2% fewer followers than Lula’s, the average number of interactions on Favio’s account is 2.96 times higher than that of Lula’s account.
Lula's campaign team stated that these interferences began as early as December last year. At that time, the Brazilian House of Representatives was voting on a bill aimed at reducing the sentences of former President Bozonaro and other individuals who were convicted for attempting to stage a coup. The accounts of President Lula and several left-wing leaders 'suddenly disappeared from the Instagram search system, limiting users' ability to find these accounts on that social platform.
Lula’s campaign team stated that during this election, their candidate’s advertising account was temporarily disabled, and the counting of views on some posts was interrupted, affecting the scope of dissemination. Just last Friday (the 9th), Lula’s Instagram account was also banned from paying for promotional content.
Lula’s campaign team pointed out that every time these issues arise, Meta attributes them to “technical failures”. They believe that Meta’s algorithms are biased in favor of right-wing candidates.
Lula's campaign team has filed a complaint with Brazil's Supreme Electoral Court and reported Meta to Brazil's National Data Protection Agency (ANPD).
The Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court subsequently required Meta to provide a explanation within 48 hours, clarifying whether it had reduced the spread of posts related to Lula. Meta was also asked to explain individually each account's measures taken against Lula's official accounts, and to explain the reasons for anomalies in data indicators such as video views.
Regarding allegations against Meta's presidential candidate team, Meta denies. In a statement sent to Agence France-Presse, the Meta Brazil office states that the company adheres to election rules and claims “these allegations are completely false without any factual basis.”
Meta also stated that many of the technical issues mentioned above do not affect Brazil alone, nor do they affect specific accounts only.
