Brazil Court Orders Meta to Prove Equal Treatment for Lula, Bolsonaro

Six days before Brazilians return to the polls, a federal judge in Brasília gave Meta one day to answer a simple question: is the company treating President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Senator Flavio Bolsonaro the same way on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Brazil's Superior Electoral Court, known as the TSE, issued the order Monday and, in the same ruling, doubled the daily fine Meta faces for failing to comply with an earlier directive on how political content appears in its feeds, according to Al Jazeera. The penalty rose from 500,000 Brazilian reals, or about $100,000, to one million reals, or roughly $200,000, per day of noncompliance, the court said.

What did the TSE order Meta to do?

The court gave Meta 24 hours from Monday's ruling to demonstrate that its platforms are not favoring one candidate's content over the other's ahead of Sunday's presidential runoff. "The continued noncompliance, just a few days before the run-off election, demonstrates that the fine imposed was insufficient," a TSE judge wrote in the order, as reported by Al Jazeera.

The order follows an earlier TSE directive governing how political content should be surfaced on Meta's platforms during the election. Monday's ruling found Meta had not met the terms of that earlier order and raised the financial penalty for continued noncompliance.

Why did the fine double?

The TSE's language points to a pattern, not a single lapse. The judge's order described Meta's noncompliance as "continued," language that suggests the court had flagged the issue before Monday's ruling and found the company's response lacking. Doubling the fine to one million reals a day is meant to raise the cost of inaction in the final stretch before voting, when visibility on social platforms can shape undecided voters.

What does Lula's campaign allege?

The order responds to a complaint from Lula's campaign, which argues Meta has prevented his profile from being fully promoted on Instagram and kept it from appearing in searches, according to Al Jazeera. The campaign also contends that posts from Lula supporters are being taken down by moderators at a higher rate than posts promoting Bolsonaro or questioning the integrity of Brazil's elections.

Civil society groups and digital rights monitors have echoed those claims, telling Al Jazeera that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have suppressed content from the left-leaning incumbent while boosting posts favoring his rival. The nonprofit group CTRL+Z is among the organizations that have published findings on the dispute, per the Al Jazeera report. Lula's campaign also launched a website this month for supporters to document complaints about content restrictions on Meta and other platforms.

How has Meta responded?

Meta has denied favoring either candidate on its platforms, Al Jazeera reported. The company has acknowledged that some of Lula's campaign ads were taken offline temporarily, but attributed that to technical errors rather than political targeting.

The dispute sits inside a broader run of scrutiny for Meta in Brazil. Al Jazeera's related coverage includes a report on Meta employees who said Lula's accounts were restricted inside Brazil during the election, part of what the outlet frames as a wider question of whether social media platforms face a global legal reckoning over election-period content moderation.

What happens before Sunday's runoff?

• October 4: First-round voting. Bolsonaro, son of an imprisoned former president, took 47 percent of the vote; Lula took 45 percent. Neither cleared the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright, according to Al Jazeera.
• Early October: Lula's campaign launches a complaint website for supporters to flag restricted content on Meta platforms.
• October 18: Lula and Bolsonaro hold their first run-off debate in São Paulo.
• October 19 (Monday): TSE doubles Meta's daily noncompliance fine to one million reals and gives the company 24 hours to prove it isn't tilting its feeds toward either candidate.
• October 25 (Sunday): Brazilians vote in the presidential run-off between Lula and Bolsonaro.

Pre-election polling has the two candidates virtually tied heading into Sunday, Al Jazeera reported. With the race that close, how Meta's platforms display — or don't display — campaign content in the final days could matter to a small but decisive slice of undecided voters. The TSE's order does not specify what penalty, beyond the doubled fine, Meta would face if it fails to satisfy the 24-hour deadline, and Al Jazeera's report did not include a Meta statement responding directly to Monday's ruling.