Meta, the technology company responsible for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, was ordered on Tuesday (10) to pay R$7.5 million for the unequal treatment of the candidacies of Lula (PT) and Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) during the 2026 electoral campaign.
The TSE (Superior Electoral Court) unanimously understood that the company failed to comply with part of the orders given during the campaign and imposed a fine. According to the rapporteur, Marco Aurélio Bellizze, the punishment is due to the delay and incomplete compliance with the determinations, and not to alleged favoritism towards candidates.
The money does not go to Lula's coalition, author of the action. According to the TSE's jurisprudence, fines for non-compliance with orders from the Electoral Court go to the party fund, which is divided between the parties, and the Union is the one who collects it, through the AGU (Attorney General of the Union).
The fine imposed by the TSE is a fine, also called a punitive fine. This type of sanction is coercive in nature and is applied to prevent non-compliance with court decisions, not to repair it. The amount that Meta was ordered to pay has no direct relationship with the company's eventual intention to favor a candidate.
It is not, therefore, compensation for possible loss, such as compensation for moral or material damages. In his vote, the rapporteur himself recognizes that the value applied to the Target "is not related to the possible intention of favoring a certain candidacy, whose affirmation would depend on robust proof of the subjective element".
On October 15, Bellizze ordered Meta to adopt measures to guarantee equal treatment for Lula and Flávio's campaigns until the second round, such as not reducing the reach of political posts, correcting restrictions on the PT member's ad account and using the same criteria for both in Meta AI. Each order had its own deadline, under penalty of a daily fine of R$500,000.
Meta did not comply with the order to inform the measures taken within 48 hours, says the decision. For the rapporteur, the report delivered after the second round does not make up for the lack. The company also did not prove that it turned off the boost within the legal deadline nor that it corrected the labeling of content made with AI.
Other orders were only partially fulfilled. The report on suspended ads was incomplete in around a fifth of the records, and the report on reporting channels was restricted to campaigns. At Meta AI, company data showed that 24.7% of requests for one candidate were rejected and 98.1% for the other.
Some measures were taken after the deadline, such as the suspension of advertisements hired by those who did not have authorization and the investigation of 255 profiles identified as false. For Bellizze, part of the data came in a foreign language, in aggregate form or in generic statements, which made checking difficult.
According to the vote, the fine began to count on October 17th, when non-compliance was established, and totaled R$ 1.5 million until the 19th. On the 18th, the minister gave the company another 24 hours to prove compliance. As this did not happen, the value doubled to R$1 million per day from the 20th to the 25th, which adds up to R$6 million.
As Folha revealed, Meta employees admitted in internal messages that Lula's Instagram accounts were harmed by restrictions on recommendations from the social network's algorithm.
Meta can appeal, and collection should only begin when there are no more resources available. The company may file a motion for clarification against the ruling. The Electoral Court adopts shorter deadlines in relation to the common Court. Appeals against decisions taken in representations that question irregular electoral advertisements must be filed, as a rule, within three days.
