With less than 5 days left before the presidential election in Brazil, the competition between the current president Luiz Inacio Lula and his opponent Flavio Bolsonaro is intensifying.
According to AFP report on October 21, two Brazilian presidential candidates are engaged in a new round of debates regarding suspected violations of social media platforms. Both parties have demanded that the other party’s candidacy be disqualified.
Lula’s campaign team announced on the 20th that they would file a request with the court on the 21st local time, requesting to disqualify Flavio Bolsonaro from running for office. The reason given is that American technology giant Meta is suspected of interfering in the election process. Previously, Lula’s campaign team accused Meta of suppressing Lula’s campaign content on social media in order to help Flavio Bolsonaro.
However, before Lula's camp officially submitted its application, Flavio's camp took action first.
Later in the evening of the 20th, the Favio camp submitted documents to the court, requesting the cancellation of Lu’s candidacy. According to the documents seen by AFP, the Favio camp accused Lu of spreading government information on a large scale through WhatsApp during the campaign, constituting an act of “misuse of power”.
A court source revealed that representatives of Meta Corporation met with the lawyers of two candidates at the Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court on the 20th.
The day before, the Brazilian Supreme Electoral Court demanded that Meta prove compliance with the order to treat both campaigns equally within 24 hours; otherwise, it would face a fine of about $200,000 per day.
Meta owns Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram among other social platforms.
The company issued a statement on the 20th stating: "We have completed implementing the relevant measures in accordance with the judgment of the Supreme Election Court."
Meta denies taking any actions that favor one side, but the company previously admitted that due to technical failures, some election ads from Lula’s camp were “incorrectly” disabled.
In the first round of voting held in Brazil this month, Fabio Borsoi-na-ro received approximately 47% of the votes, leading Lula by roughly two percentage points.
This unexpected result also stimulated the left-wing camp. Subsequently, Lula's team held large-scale campaign rallies and increased their efforts in social media promotion. The latest polls show that Lula has gradually narrowed the gap, with both parties’ support rates being relatively close to each other within the margin of error.
