The messages, reported by a Brazilian daily, say the phase recommended Bolsonaro’s overview and his WhatsApp channel.
Published On 16 Oct 2026
Employees at Meta have acknowledged in inner communications that the Instagram accounts of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were negatively affected by restrictions during the country’s election, media reports say.
The messages, reported on Friday by Brazilian regular Folha de S Paulo, additionally acknowledged the phase recommended the overview of Lula challenger Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, as fine as his WhatsApp channel. Folha, the Sao Paulo-based paper, cited messages it had reviewed.
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Meta told the Reuters news agency that the specialized issues cited in the study were already community and the conversations it referenced connected solely to the severity of the issues, not governmental interference.
“Any recommendation that Meta favors one flank is false,” it added in a statement.
Lula, the left-wing incumbent, volition visage right-wing challenger Bolsonaro in a presidential runoff on October 25, following a stronger-than-expected achievement by the legislator in the first-round ballot before this month.
Friday’s study came on the heels of a Brazilian court ruling on Thursday that ordered Meta to immediately clasp measures to provision equal care of the two candidates onward of the runoff.
The ruling by a fairness in Brazil’s top electoral court was made shortly following Lula submitted a grievance that accused the tech elephantine – which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp – of using biased algorithms and AI restrictions to favor opposition applicant Bolsonaro onward of the election.
Justice Marco Aurelio Bellizze ruled that Meta cannot decrease the allocation of governmental content, restrict searches or eliminate posts in a way that creates an imbalance between Lula and Bolsonaro. His ruling additionally orders the business to justify its synthetic intellect tool applies identical criteria to the two candidacies.
Bellizze stated in his ruling that Meta must pay a fine of 500,000 reais ($98,700) per day if it fails to comply.
According to Lula’s party, several of his posts appeared without a portion clasp and had reduced reach. Options for reactions, sharing, audio or accelerated speed were additionally missing.
