Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s campaign has formally accused Meta of allegedly favouring his presidential rival, Flávio Bolsonaro, in the final days of the country’s election campaign, asking the United Nations, Brazil’s federal police and the federal prosecution service to investigate possible irregularities. The allegations centre on reported restrictions affecting Lula’s online reach and incidents involving WhatsApp and Meta’s artificial intelligence tools. Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has attributed the problems to technical errors, according to the source material.
The complaint, submitted on Saturday by the coalition supporting Lula, calls for an investigation into whether the technology company provided economic advantages to Bolsonaro’s campaign through the distribution of content and the production of material on its platforms. If established, the alleged benefits could constitute an electoral offence. The dispute has become a significant feature of the closing stage of Brazil’s presidential race, with voting due to conclude on 25 October and polls indicating a statistical tie, with Bolsonaro narrowly ahead.
Lula’s campaign submitted a technical report to Leopoldo Maldonado, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. The document describes what the coalition calls “serious incidents that interfered with equal conditions between candidates as a result of the unequal treatment given by Meta”. It asks the United Nations representative to examine the allegations while seeking formal investigations by Brazil’s attorney general, Paulo Gonet, and the Federal Police.
The complaint identifies several incidents that the campaign believes disadvantaged Lula in the digital contest. These include an alleged reduction in the reach of his Instagram profiles, changes to WhatsApp search suggestions and differences in the responses provided by Meta’s artificial intelligence tool to requests for political images.
According to the documents, searches on WhatsApp for the channel ‘Exército de Lula’ began suggesting ‘Tropa de Flávio’ instead. The campaign also alleges that Meta’s artificial intelligence system refused requests to generate images supporting Lula while fulfilling comparable requests involving Bolsonaro. Together with the reported restrictions on Instagram, the incidents have prompted Lula’s allies to seek an examination of whether the platforms treated the candidates differently.
The coalition wants investigators to take statements from Flávio Bolsonaro, the campaign treasurer and Meta executives in Brazil. It has also requested the precautionary preservation of communications and internal messages, alongside data on content reach, the history of filters applied to accounts and the platforms’ relevant configurations. The complaint further calls for international legal cooperation with the United States to obtain records held by Meta’s parent company.
The request seeks to establish whether the reported incidents resulted from technical problems or reflected treatment that conferred an improper advantage on one candidate. The source material does not establish that Meta deliberately intervened in the election or that Bolsonaro’s campaign received illegal assistance. The allegations remain the subject of the requested investigations.
In its submission to the Federal Police and the prosecution service, Lula’s campaign argues that electoral integrity extends beyond the mechanics of voting and the counting of ballots. “The integrity of an election does not depend exclusively on the security of the ballot boxes, the regularity of voting and the accuracy of the count, ensured in Brazil by a recognised reliable system,” the document states. “It also depends on voters having effective conditions to form their political convictions freely, without undue manipulation, coercion, discrimination in information or imbalance in the digital contest.”
The complaint reflects the campaign’s growing concern about the influence of foreign technology companies on Brazil’s electoral process. Lula’s allies have increasingly alleged foreign interference in the contest, while continuing to use the same social media platforms to reach voters and challenge what they regard as an unfavourable algorithm.
One of the most visible responses has come from André Janones, a federal deputy and leader of the ‘Exército de Lula’ WhatsApp channel, which has more than five million users. On Saturday morning, Janones helped coordinate a mass online campaign that filled Instagram feeds across large parts of Brazil with photographs of Lula supporters dressed in green and yellow and making the letter ‘L’ sign with their hands.
The initiative sought to reclaim Brazil’s national colours, which the campaign believes have been appropriated by the political right, and present Lula’s supporters in a way more appealing to undecided voters and those considering abstaining. The coordinated effort was intended to break beyond the left’s existing online audience and reach voters in the political centre.
The mobilisation illustrates how the dispute over Meta has developed alongside a broader struggle for visibility in Brazil’s digital campaigning. While Lula’s coalition seeks formal scrutiny of the platforms’ conduct, its supporters are attempting to overcome perceived algorithmic disadvantages through coordinated activity on social media. With the election approaching on 25 October, the campaign’s complaints and its efforts to expand its online reach have become intertwined with the final phase of the presidential contest.
