Lula campaign files complaints against Meta
The campaign of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has formally accused Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads, of intervening in the presidential election to favor far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro. The campaign took its case to the Superior Electoral Court and the National Data Protection Agency, requesting a review of actions that it says point to unequal treatment of presidential candidates by the company led by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.[S1][S2][S3][S4][S5][S6][S7][S8]
In a statement, the team of the Workers' Party candidate said that in recent days Meta prevented President Lula's profile from promoting feed posts on Instagram. It also alleged that a post from his official account suffered an interruption in view registration, which affected its reach. The campaign of the Brazilian leader, who is seeking a fourth presidential term, said Meta attributed the difficulties to technical failures that supposedly affected other advertisers, but that the candidacy received no evidence to support that explanation.[S1]
The Lula team added that the succession of technical problems the company has not explained raises strong suspicions that Meta's actions constitute an attempt to interfere in the Brazilian electoral process to benefit Flávio Bolsonaro's candidacy. The campaign also said the complete absence of transparency in the company's systems makes those explanations scarce and opaque. Lula had previously denounced attempts at electoral interference by the government of U.S. President Donald Trump to favor his rival, and his administration is evaluating whether large technology companies, known as big tech, have operated in that direction.[S1]
After Lula placed second in last Sunday's first round with 45% of the vote to Flávio Bolsonaro's 47%, the Workers' Party candidate is seeking to strengthen his social media presence to reverse the first-round result.[S1]
Bolsonaro says he wants his father to give him the presidential sash
At a campaign event held this Saturday in São Gonçalo, in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party told supporters that if elected he would receive the presidential sash from his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a prison sentence after being convicted by the Supreme Federal Court for leading an attempted coup after losing to Lula in the 2022 election.[S1]
The candidate revealed this aspiration from the top of a sound car during a motorcade through the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The senator and far-right candidate, close to Javier Milei and supported by Donald Trump, said that on inauguration day people would see him praying and entrusting Brazil to God, and see Jair Bolsonaro placing the presidential sash on him.[S1]
Attacks on Lula's government and campaign promises
During the rally, Flávio Bolsonaro declared that the presidential election would represent the end of the Lula era in Brazil and attacked the progressive administration, citing supposed negative data on public security, household debt and the economy.[S1]
Among the promises announced to demonstrators, Bolsonaro defended reducing the age of criminal responsibility to 16, authorizing young people of that age to obtain a national driver's license, applying chemical castration to those convicted of rape, and increasing the minimum sentence for mobile phone theft to eight years in closed prison with a work requirement. He said a minor who commits a crime against adults would pay as an adult, and that a mobile phone thief would be imprisoned for eight years and would have to work to pay for his stay.[S1]
