Two Brazilian civil society organizations, Sleeping Giants Brasil and CTRL+Z, submitted evidence to the Superior Electoral Court on Monday alleging that Meta’s platforms show signs of favoring Senator Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s ahead of the election.
According to the petition, searches on Instagram and WhatsApp for the word “brasil” prominently displayed images of Flávio Bolsonaro in top positions, while results for Lula showed only text-based mentions without photos. The organizations tested the same searches across three separate accounts and found consistent patterns, raising questions about the ranking criteria used by Meta’s systems.
The groups also documented what they characterize as disparities in how political content appears. A WhatsApp search for the word “ladrão” (thief) returned a caricature of Lula in prison dress, while on Instagram, a hashtag search for “lula” suggested “#lulaladrão” (Lula thief) as the top option. By contrast, searching for “bolsonaro” placed critical hashtags like “#bolsonaronuncamais” (Bolsonaro never again) among lower-ranked suggestions.
The organizations requested that an Instagram hashtag ordering issue and other irregularities be corrected within 24 hours, and demanded Meta disclose the criteria used to rank search results and produce artificial intelligence responses. According to the petition, Sleeping Giants Brasil and CTRL+Z also included tests of Meta AI, WhatsApp’s artificial intelligence tool, in which users asked it to pick numbers between 1 and 25 without context. One response was 13 (Lula’s party ballot number) and another was 22 (Bolsonaro’s party number).
Meta has denied deliberately favoring any candidate, previously attributing earlier problems to technical failures. The company did not respond to requests for comment about the new evidence by publication time.
This petition arrives as the electoral court intensifies pressure on Meta. Justice Marco Aurélio Bellizze previously ordered the company to apply identical criteria to both campaigns and prove compliance. On Friday, the full court upheld that decision, and on Sunday, Bellizze issued a new 24-hour deadline for Meta to demonstrate compliance. The court has threatened to increase the daily fine from R$500,000 (about $99,000) to R$1 million (about $198,000) if noncompliance continues.
The case originated from complaints by Lula’s campaign regarding content circulation limits and disparities in how Meta’s tools function compared to tools related to his opponent. Sleeping Giants Brasil and CTRL+Z also organized a demonstration at Meta’s São Paulo headquarters Monday evening, handing a notice to the company’s Brazilian director.
Key facts
- Sleeping Giants Brasil and CTRL+Z presented evidence to Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court alleging Meta platforms show unequal treatment favoring Senator Flávio Bolsonaro over President Lula
- Search results for “brasil” on Instagram showed Flávio Bolsonaro in top image positions while Lula appeared only as text, consistent across multiple accounts
- Hashtag suggestions differed by candidate: “#lulaladrão” (Lula thief) appeared first for Lula searches while critical hashtags were lower-ranked for Bolsonaro
- The electoral court has ordered Meta to apply identical criteria to both campaigns and threatened to increase daily fines from $99,000 to $198,000 if compliance fails
- Meta denied deliberately favoring any candidate and blamed earlier problems on technical failures