Brazil’s electoral court bans Bolsonaro allies from false posts — The Rio Times

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court has barred federal deputy Nikolas Ferreira and influencer Pablo Marçal from publishing false or illegal election-related content until voting ends on October 25. Both support Rio de Janeiro senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who is running in the second round of the presidential election against incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Rio Times reports that the decision was made on October 23.

Fines for authors and platforms

Electoral inspector Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva ruled that Ferreira and Marçal must each pay 100,000 reais for every post that violates the ban. The restrictions cover, in particular, the misuse of artificial intelligence and the use of images of children in election content.

Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and Threads, as well as the social network X, must submit reports every six hours on the reach and distribution of materials from the two accounts on the eve of voting and on election day. Each platform faces a fine of 500,000 reais for failing to comply with this requirement.

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Complaint by Lula’s coalition

The decision was made following a complaint by Lula’s Brasil Pronto pra Mais coalition. Its representatives said that posts by Bolsonaro’s allies were also distributed to users who did not follow their pages. At the same time, Cueva noted that the platforms’ data do not explain the mechanism of such distribution and do not prove illegal assistance by algorithms.

On October 19, the court had already prohibited Ferreira and Marçal from republishing materials whose removal had been ordered by previous decisions. At that time, a fine of 50,000 reais was envisaged for each violation, while Meta and X were ordered to stop paid promotion of these accounts until 23:59 on October 25.