Employees at Meta have acknowledged in internal communications that the Instagram accounts of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were negatively affected by restrictions during the country’s election, media reports say. The messages, reported on Friday by Brazilian daily Folha de S Paulo, also acknowledged the platform recommended the profile of Lula challenger Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, as well as his WhatsApp channel. Folha, the Sao Paulo-based paper, cited messages it had reviewed.
Meta told the news agency that the technical issues cited in the report were already public and the conversations it referenced related solely to the severity of the issues, not political interference. Lula, the left-wing incumbent, will face right-wing challenger Bolsonaro in a presidential runoff on October 25, following a stronger-than-expected performance by the senator in the first-round vote earlier this month. Friday’s report came on the heels of a Brazilian court ruling on Thursday that ordered Meta to immediately adopt measures to provide equal treatment of the two candidates ahead of the runoff.
The ruling by a judge in Brazil’s top electoral court was made shortly after Lula filed a complaint that accused the tech giant – which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp – of using biased algorithms and AI restrictions to favour opposition candidate Bolsonaro ahead of the election. Justice Marco Aurelio Bellizze ruled that Meta cannot reduce the distribution of political content, restrict searches or remove posts in a way that creates an imbalance between Lula and Bolsonaro. His ruling also orders the company to ensure its artificial intelligence tool applies identical criteria to both candidacies.
Bellizze said in his ruling that Meta must pay a fine of 500,000 reais ($98,700) per day if it fails to comply. According to Lula’s party, some of his posts appeared without a share button and had reduced reach. Options for reactions, sharing, audio or accelerated speed were also missing.
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