Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court has issued a 48-hour deadline to social media company Meta, requiring the tech giant to clarify allegations that it deliberately reduced the visibility of posts from incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s campaign.
The order was issued on Saturday as the country braces for a tight run-off election scheduled for October 25 against rightwing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro. President Lula’s campaign has accused the platform of blocking content, raising concerns about potential interference in the democratic process.
Meta must now provide answers regarding whether its algorithms or policies contributed to the diminished reach of the leftist candidate’s material in the final stretch of the campaign.
Is this just standard election scrutiny or actual interference? The court is right to ask, but I wonder if Meta will simply blame ‘organic reach’ again.
Meta needs to be transparent here. If algorithms are suppressing political content, we need to know exactly how and why.
This timing is incredibly suspicious. A 48-hour deadline right before the run-off feels like a last-ditch effort to contain the damage.