Brazil's Top Electoral Court Gives Meta Deadline to Respond: Lula Camp Accuses Platform of Interfering in Runoff

Rio de Janeiro — Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) issued a 48-hour deadline on Saturday to tech giant Meta, demanding itemized explanations for multiple allegations raised by Lula's campaign team. This rare move has thrust the role played by Silicon Valley platforms in Latin American elections into the spotlight.

According to AFP and France 24, the TSE required Meta to "report on an account-by-account basis" all measures imposed on Lula's official accounts and to explain anomalies in the relevant video metrics. The Lula camp had previously filed a formal complaint with the electoral court, accusing its content of being systematically restricted on Meta's platforms.

Lula's campaign team listed several specific instances in a statement: the platform "prevented President Lula's account from promoting Instagram Stories posts"; one of its official account's posts "experienced an interruption in views, affecting its reach"; furthermore, before the October 4 first round, Lula and other left-wing leaders' accounts "suddenly disappeared from Instagram's search function."

In the first round, far-right Senator Flavio Bolsonaro — son of former president Jair Bolsonaro — led the vote count. Incumbent President Lula is seeking his fourth non-consecutive term, and the runoff between the two is scheduled for October 25. Lula himself does not use a mobile phone, but has noticeably increased his social media investment after entering the runoff stage, continuously releasing video addresses aimed at internet users.

The Lula camp used harsh language in its statement: "This series of technical issues... strongly suggests that Meta's conduct constitutes an attempt to interfere in the Brazilian electoral process in favor of Senator Flavio Bolsonaro."

Meta's Brazil office denied the allegations, telling AFP in an email that the claims were "completely false" and "without factual basis." Meta also argued: "Many of the technical issues mentioned do not only affect Brazil or specific accounts," and stressed: "We comply with electoral regulations and are committed to providing a fair environment for all parties using the platform."

At the critical juncture with less than two weeks until the runoff, the TSE intervened with its inquiry, requiring the U.S.-headquartered tech giant to provide itemized disclosures of its platform behavior — a rare case of Brazil's electoral regulator directly exercising regulatory authority over a global platform. The Lula camp's allegations, Meta's outright denial and the TSE's required itemized disclosures are intertwined, making the role played by the tech giant's platform algorithms in the final stage of Brazil's electoral battle an unavoidable accountability issue within the framework of the country's electoral sovereignty.