Brazil Court Gives Meta 24 Hours to Prove Equal Treatment of Candidates

Brazil's Superior Electoral Court has given Meta 24 hours to show that it is not favouring either candidate in the presidential race, doubling the daily fine for noncompliance from 500,000 Brazilian reals ($100,000) to 1 million reals ($200,000). Al Jazeera

The order was issued by a single judge of the court, the country's top authority for electoral matters. The ruling found that Meta had failed to demonstrate compliance with a previous court order governing political content on its platform, and directed the company to adopt measures to immediately secure equal treatment of the two campaigns.

It follows a complaint from the campaign of incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The campaign said Meta had prevented Lula's profile from being fully promoted on Instagram and from being visible in searches.

Meta denied favouring either candidate. The company said some of Lula's campaign advertisements were taken offline temporarily due to technical errors.

The order came less than a week before the presidential run-off between Lula and senator Flavio Bolsonaro. In the first-round vote on Oct. 4, Bolsonaro received 47% of the vote and Lula received 45%, triggering a second, decisive vote. The run-off is scheduled for Oct. 25. AP