According to Brazilian newspaper 'São Paulo Post', local time on October 16th, employees of tech giant Meta admitted in internal communication records that President Lula's Instagram account was restricted during the election period in Brazil, resulting in a negative impact on the account’s traffic.
According to internal information obtained by the newspaper, the platform’s algorithm also actively recommended the personal homepage and its WhatsApp channel of Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, Lu’s opponent in the election.
The second round of the Brazilian presidential election is scheduled to take place on October 25th, with Lula competing against Flavio. In the first round held on October 4th, Flavio led Lula by about 47% of the votes.
On October 15th local time, the Brazilian Electoral Court ruled that Meta must take immediate measures to treat both candidates equally before the second round of voting.
The Brazilian Electoral Court requires that Meta must not use measures such as reducing the exposure of political content, restricting searches, or deleting posts to create an imbalance in treatment between Lula and Flavio. The ruling also requires that the company’s artificial intelligence tools must use completely consistent review standards for both candidates.
The judgment states that if Meta refuses to comply, a fine of 500,000 reales per day (approximately $97,800) will be imposed.
According to The Associated Press, in response to the Brazilian court's judgment, Meta issued a statement on the 15th, stating that the series of problems that have occurred on the platform recently were caused by global 'technical failures', strict anti-fraud measures, and compliance requirements, and were not intended as an 'intentional suppression'.
The company claims that its system does not filter content based on political ideology, and emphasizes that all rules are applied equally. However, it does not explain why Flavio’s account is recommended by the algorithm.
"Meta applies the same rules to all candidates, political parties, and political viewpoints in Brazil. This practice aligns with the rules used in elections held globally. We will not suppress any content and will treat all sides equally. The issues raised by Lula's campaign team have been clearly explained; these situations do not represent political bias."
On October 10th local time, Lula’s campaign team accused Meta of interfering in the Brazilian presidential election through biased algorithms and AI throttling measures. The interference began as early as December last year.
Lula's team stated in their statement that although Flavio's social media account has 17.2% fewer followers than Lula's, the average amount of interaction on his account is 2.96 times that of Lula's.
The statement indicates that during this year’s elections, the campaign account of its candidate was temporarily disabled, and the counting of views for some posts was interrupted, affecting the scope of dissemination. Whenever these issues occurred, Meta attributed them to “technical failures”.
