(The Turkish Post) – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s re-election campaign has accused Meta of interfering in the country’s presidential election, saying the company restricted the reach of his Instagram posts two weeks before the Oct. 25 run-off.
The campaign filed a complaint with Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) on Saturday, Oct. 10, and the court gave Meta 48 hours to explain what had happened to Lula’s accounts. Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, rejected the accusations.
Lula campaign lists problems on Instagram
In its complaint, Lula’s coalition said Meta had blocked the president’s profile from paying to promote posts in his Instagram feed from Friday, Oct. 9, until Saturday morning. It said the view counter on one of his posts had stopped working earlier in the week, which cut the post’s reach.
The campaign also said Meta had deactivated the advertising account used by Lula’s campaign in September, during the race for the first round. It said the profiles of Lula and other left-wing leaders had at one point disappeared from Instagram’s search function.
The coalition asked the court to look into a network of 255 automated Instagram profiles that it said had been used to simulate support for Lula’s rival, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, and to spread content against the president.
The campaign said the problems raised suspicion that Meta was trying to interfere in the election. It also took its complaint to Brazil’s national data protection authority.
Electoral court gives Meta 48 hours
Judge Marco Aurelio Bellizze of the electoral court ordered Meta to report, profile by profile, all measures it had applied to Lula’s official accounts since the official campaign period began on Aug. 16, and to explain the irregularities in the metrics of his videos.
The judge also ordered the company to explain why the campaign’s advertising account was disabled, to say whether its content recommendation rules apply equally to Lula and to Flavio Bolsonaro, and to preserve its technical records on content moderation, advertising and distribution.
Once Meta responds, Lula’s coalition and the Electoral Prosecutor’s Office will each have 24 hours to comment before the court rules.
Meta rejects the accusations
Meta’s office in Brazil said the accusations were “simply false” and “not supported by the facts.” The company said many of the technical problems mentioned by the campaign had not affected only Brazil or specific accounts.
Meta said it complies with electoral regulations and is committed to a level playing field in the use of its platforms. It said earlier that the problem with boosting posts was technical.
A close Brazil election run-off
Lula, 80, is seeking a fourth, non-consecutive term. In the first round on Oct. 4, Flavio Bolsonaro won about 47% of the valid votes and Lula about 45%, according to official results, sending the two to a run-off.
Flavio Bolsonaro, a senator from Rio de Janeiro, is the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is barred from running for office. In September 2025, Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted the elder Bolsonaro of plotting a coup to stay in power after he lost the 2022 election to Lula, and sentenced him to 27 years and three months in prison.
Lula served two terms as president from 2003 to 2010 and returned to office in January 2023 after narrowly defeating Jair Bolsonaro, winning about 50.9% of the valid votes in the 2022 run-off. A week after his inauguration, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court in Brasilia on Jan. 8, 2023.
Social media platforms have faced close scrutiny from Brazil’s courts in recent years. In August 2024, the Supreme Court ordered the suspension of X across the country after the platform refused to comply with court orders and failed to name a legal representative in Brazil. The service was restored about 40 days later after the company complied.
In January 2025, the Brazilian government demanded explanations from Meta after the company announced it would end its third-party fact-checking program in the United States and loosen its rules on hateful content.
