Overview
- Meta has publicly acknowledged multiple platform incidents that it says were technical, including a Sept. 23 accidental deactivation of Lula’s ad account, an Oct. 7 view‑count freeze, and an Oct. 9 outage that blocked creation of ads from Instagram posts and was later fixed.
- Leaked internal communications reported by Folha de S.Paulo show Meta employees admitting Lula’s accounts faced restrictions and that Bolsonaro profiles were being recommended by platform systems.
- The Tribunal Superior Eleitoral ordered Meta to guarantee equal treatment for both presidential campaigns and set a potential 500,000‑reais daily fine for noncompliance, together with faster human review of automated restrictions.
- Lula’s campaign has filed complaints with international bodies including the UN and OAS and asked Brazilian prosecutors to investigate possible illegal financing and to preserve Meta’s internal logs for cross‑border cooperation.
- Researchers have documented irregular political advertising on Meta and the Lula team says the Oct. 9 outage cost about 1.3 million paid‑impression opportunities, a loss that could matter in a tightly contested race and that leaves investigators and regulators watching for company compliance and preserved records.