Rome, 21 October (askanews) – Representatives of the American technology giant Meta and the heads of the campaigns of Luiz Inàcio Lula da Silva and Flavio Bolsonaro in the presidential election attended a meeting at Brazil's Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), following a request made by Lula to disqualify Bolsonaro for electoral interference by Meta.
According to the president's team, the request concerns alleged "algorithmic manipulation" by Meta aimed at compromising Lula's chances of victory. The seriousness of the accusation is inflaming the electoral campaign just five days before the runoff on Sunday, October 25, in which Bolsonaro is considered the clear favorite, having surpassed President Lula in the first round with 47% of the vote to 45%.
Brazilian social media has been inundated with reports from Lula supporters that their content on Instagram and Facebook had been removed or restricted from being distributed. Meta initially denied the allegations, citing technical problems. The group's oversight committee, a semi-independent body whose decisions are binding, then issued a statement saying it was "concerned by Meta's recurring failures to implement measures to ensure electoral integrity." It cited both the elections in Brazil and the suspension, for several hours last Saturday, of the account of the anti-Trump "No Kings" movement in the United States during demonstrations to encourage early voting in the November 3 US midterm elections. In São Paulo, hundreds of people demonstrated outside Meta's headquarters in Brazil, chanting "Meta nao se meta nas nossas eleiçoes" (Meta don't meddle in our elections), accusing Mark Zuckerberg's big tech company of wanting to help Flavio Bolsonaro as a favor to Donald Trump. Trump, a longtime ally of Flavio's father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a prison sentence for an attempted coup after Lula won the 2022 elections.
André Boselli, coordinator of the NGO Article 19, one of the groups that organized the demonstration, explained: “The owners of Big Tech financed Trump's election campaign, the owners of Big Tech were present at his inauguration ceremony, and this is symptomatic and demonstrates the political and ideological alignment between these large communications conglomerates and a certain US political line.”
Askanews