Meta tells Brazil’s electoral court it has treated Lula and Bolsonaro equally
Meta told Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court on Tuesday that it had introduced measures to ensure equal treatment of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro ahead of Sunday’s presidential run-off. The filing followed a court order giving the company 24 hours to prove compliance; the court had raised the daily fine for non-compliance to €198,000 (1 million Brazilian reals).
Bottom line — Meta says its ad-account reviews will remain in place through Sunday’s run-off.
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Reuters reports that Meta listed 17 initiatives in a nine-page filing and said content related to both campaigns is treated equally.
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Meta told Reuters it had introduced prior human review of both campaigns’ advertising accounts; automated restrictions are to be reviewed within two hours.
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The Associated Press reports Meta said the court-ordered restrictions do not affect organic posts.
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The court’s order followed complaints from Lula’s campaign alleging that his content was suppressed and Bolsonaro’s was favoured; Meta denies political bias and has attributed earlier ad deactivations to technical errors, according to Al Jazeera.
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Sleeping Giants Brasil and CTRL+Z submitted further examples to the court, including WhatsApp GIF and AI results and Instagram hashtag suggestions; the groups asked Meta to explain how its systems rank content.
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The Associated Press reports that Meta’s representatives and the two campaigns were expected to meet a judge in Brasília on Tuesday.