Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) (AFP) – US tech giant Meta said Tuesday it had complied with a Brazilian court order to treat the election campaigns of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Flavio Bolsonaro equally. The ideologically opposed pair will face each other in a runoff on Sunday, and leftist Lula’s campaign has accused Meta of “interference” in the tense election.
Brazil’s top electoral court on Monday gave the company 24 hours to prove it was complying with an order issued last week, threatening a daily fine of around $200,000 if it didn’t. “We have completed the implementation of the measures to comply with the Superior Electoral Court’s decision,” Meta stated.
The original order came after Lula’s campaign alleged that Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, was suppressing his online content to boost Bolsonaro ahead of the runoff. The campaign also alleged inconsistencies in WhatsApp’s artificial intelligence tool, saying Lula-related election content was limited while Bolsonaro content was untouched.
Meta’s independent oversight board also identified issues in content moderation related to Brazil’s presidential elections. “The Oversight Board is concerned by recurring enforcement failures in Meta’s election integrity efforts,” it stated Tuesday.
Meta has denied taking any actions to favor one side in the election, but previously said that some of Lula’s campaign ads had been mistakenly deactivated due to technical errors not isolated to Brazil. The tech giant told the court that “content related to both candidacies is treated in an equal and non-discriminatory manner,” according to the document published by news outlet Poder360.
The company said in a report that it had restricted election ads to candidates and parties registered with the Superior Electoral Court. It also said it had removed 720 posts containing AI-generated content lacking proper identification, stressing that its AI tool applies the same criteria to both candidates.
Dozens of Lula supporters protested outside the company’s Sao Paulo offices on Monday, bearing placards and chanting slogans like “Meta out of Brazil.” The president is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term but is facing stiff competition from his right-wing challenger Flavio Bolsonaro. The senator received 47 percent of the vote over the incumbent’s 45 percent in the first round earlier this month, and polls show a technical tie in the runoff.
Lula has accused the United States government of meddling in the elections in favor of Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of jailed ex-leader and Washington ally Jair Bolsonaro. US President Donald Trump has not yet explicitly endorsed Flavio Bolsonaro, but called his surprise first-round finish a “very, very big victory.”
© 2024 AFP
