Top Brazilian Court Fines Meta $200k Per Day Over ‘Election Bias’

Brazil's top electoral court fines Meta $200,000 per day over 'election bias' claims.

The full report

Brazil's top electoral court has ordered Meta to adopt measures to ensure equal treatment of president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his far-right challenger Flávio Bolsonaro on its platforms, or face a daily fine of $200,000.

The court doubled the fine on Monday, citing Meta's failure to comply with an earlier order. President Lula has accused Meta of restricting his posts in the run-up to the elections first round vote and is still doing so ahead of the run-off election on Sunday.

Amnesty International and others have reported that right-wing disinformation about the election has spread widely on the platform. Meta has denied the allegations, blaming 'technical incidents' that affected 'different parts of the political spectrum'.

Lula's campaign has accused Meta of illegally practicing algorithmic selectivity, while Meta has claimed that the allegations are 'false and unfounded'. The US has also been accused of meddling in the election, with president Donald Trump hitting Brazil with a 25% trade tariff in July.

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside Meta's Sao Paulo headquarters over the weekend, organised by the group Não Se Meta. Internal communications from Instagram employees have admitted that the company's algorithm favoured Bolsonaro, according to a report by Brazilian news outlet Folha de Sao Paulo.

Meta has a huge presence in Brazil, with over 113 million Instagram users in the country as of 2024. Ahead of Sunday's vote, Lula is a close second in the polls, behind the son of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was jailed for 27 years in 2025 for attempting to stage a military coup to remove Lula from office.