Brazilian court gives Meta 24 hours to prove equal treatment — France 24

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court has ordered Meta to prove within 24 hours that its platforms treat the campaign content of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his rival, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, equally. The company faces a daily fine for failing to comply.

Court increases potential fine

As France 24 reports, the decision was made following complaints from Lula’s campaign team. The incumbent president’s campaign said Meta was restricting his campaign content online and favoring Bolsonaro ahead of the decisive second round of the election.

Last Thursday, a judge of the Superior Electoral Court ordered Meta to apply the same rules to both candidates until the end of the second round. At that time, failure to comply with the ruling carried a fine of 500,000 reais, or about $100,000, per day.

The new ruling states that Meta did not demonstrate compliance with this requirement. Therefore, the possible daily fine was increased to 1 million reais, or about $200,000.

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Meta’s position and statements from Lula’s campaign team

Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, denies acting in favor of either participant in the election. The company previously said that some of Lula’s campaign advertisements were mistakenly deactivated because of technical problems not limited to Brazil.

Lula’s campaign team also said that restrictions were applied unevenly in WhatsApp’s artificial intelligence tool. According to the team, election content linked to Lula was restricted, while Bolsonaro’s materials faced no such restrictions.

The second round of Brazil’s presidential election will take place on October 25. Earlier this month, 45-year-old Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, outpaced Lula in the first round, while polls predict a close contest.