Brazilian electoral court orders Meta to ensure equal treatment between Lula and Bolsonaro

On October 15, Marco Aurélio Bellizze, minister of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court, ordered Meta to take measures to ensure equal treatment between the campaigns of Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro in the second round of elections, according to Folha de S.Paulo. The ruling provides for a daily fine of 500 thousand reais in case of non-compliance.

The order sets a 24-hour deadline for Meta AI to apply identical criteria to the two candidacies and to inform the court of the parameters used to handle political-electoral content requests. The decision stems from a complaint by Lula’s campaign, according to which Meta AI had refused requests concerning the candidate, while generating without issue images that included Flávio Bolsonaro’s name, as reported by CNN Brasil.

Meta has denied deliberately favoring either candidacy and stated that it has already adopted additional measures to prevent the generation of images of the candidates through its artificial intelligence system. CNN Brasil also reports that the outlet itself conducted direct checks on the system’s behavior, confirming the discrepancies reported by Lula’s campaign.

The case falls within a Brazilian electoral period already marked by tensions over the use of digital platforms and their generative artificial intelligence tools in political communication. The electoral court’s intervention, with a tight 24-hour deadline and a quantified financial penalty, represents a direct precedent for how technology companies must handle content requests related to political candidacies in an ongoing race.

It remains to be seen whether Meta will meet the deadline set by the court and what technical parameters it will communicate to demonstrate the required equal treatment between the two election campaigns.