The story so far: On Sunday (October 11, 2026) the election campaign of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva accused the tech giant, Meta (parent company of WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram) of deliberately restricting and blocking social media content of the leader on its various platforms, particularly Instagram.
In the run-up to the elections (the final round will be conducted on October 25), his campaign team, in a statement wrote that Mr. It further states that post the first round of voting, which took place on October 4 wherein Mr. In 2022, an investigation conducted by The Reporters’ Collective and ad.watch of over 5 lakh political ads during the 2019 elections revealed that Facebook was offering cheaper rates to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) than its opponents.
Mr. Lula, who is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term in the ongoing electoral run in Brazil, is up against far-right candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro. Lula’s profile was prevented from promoting posts on Instagram which severely affected his reach. Bolsonaro came out on top, Mr. Lula’s and other left leaders’ profiles “suddenly disappeared from Instagram’s search function. In India, too, Facebook has been accused of favouring one political party over another. These ads were allowed to promote a particular party and attack its opponents without clearly disclosing their political affiliations.
The statement added that, “the series of technical issues… raises strong suspicions that Meta’s actions constitute an attempt to interfere in the Brazilian electoral process to the benefit of Flavio Bolsonaro’s candidacy”. Meta’s Brazil office denied the charges, calling them “simply false” and “not supported by the facts. The company said that it was committed to ensuring a level-playing field during elections, and that such glitches were global and not just localised in Brazil with the intention to tamper anyone’s candidacy. It also identified scores of “dummy” or “surrogate” ads, which are advertisements run by so-called third parties rather than the official party accounts, which are not governed by the electoral code of conduct rules and regulations that official party handles have to follow. However, Meta denied all the charges and said that, “we apply our policies uniformly without regard to anyone’s political positions or party affiliations”.
