Brazil fines Meta, "proven" favoritism to Flavio Bolsonaro in the elections

$1.3 million fine for Meta from Brazil. The US giant is accused by the South American country of having favored Flávio Bolsonaro in the October 2026 elections by influencing the vote "in a proven way". Meta allegedly violated the Court's orders during the last electoral round and for this reason the Brazilian Superior Electoral Tribunal, with a decision taken unanimously with 7 votes to 0, sentenced him to pay. The appeal against Mark Zuckerberg's giant was the group that supports the electoral campaign of the outgoing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who was later reconfirmed as leader of the country.

The appeal

The complaint began when Lula's coalition encountered a block on Instagram ads for the outgoing president's content for almost 24 hours, between 9 and 10 October. The anomaly was justified by the company as a global failure but the explanation did not convince the group that presented the appeal against Meta. The court then examined the functioning of social media, including the artificial intelligence system on WhatsApp. The virtual assistant had in fact refused to generate an electoral image with Lula's name and 13, the identification code of his party to be typed on the card, instead allowing a similar request for Flávio Bolsonaro and 22, the number of his political party. According to Judge Nauê Bernardo, the error was not of small importance, "provenably influencing the elections in our country".