Brazil Electoral Court Orders Meta to Ensure Equal Treatment of Lula and Bolsonaro Ahead of Runoff
BRASILIA — Brazil's presidential runoff will be held on October 25. Ahead of the vote, electoral court Justice Marco Aurelio Bellizze ordered Meta to take immediate steps to ensure equal treatment of both candidates.
Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that internal Meta messages showed President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's Instagram accounts were negatively affected by restrictions during the election period, and that the platform also recommended the profile of his challenger, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, along with his WhatsApp channel. Lula had filed a complaint accusing Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, of using biased algorithms and SI-based restrictions that favoured Bolsonaro.
Bellizze ruled that Meta must not reduce the spread of political content, limit searches or remove posts in ways that create an imbalance between the two candidates, and ordered the company to make sure its SI tools apply the same standards to both campaigns. Meta told Reuters that the technical problems mentioned in the report had already been made public, and that the internal discussions referred only to the seriousness of those issues rather than any political bias. The company said any claim that it favoured one side was untrue. Flavio Bolsonaro performed better than expected in the first round of voting earlier this month and will face Lula in the runoff.
Sources: Folha de S.Paulo; Reuters
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 位于巴西利亚的巴西高等选举法院（TSE）大楼。Photo by Josue Marinho, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.
