Lula Accuses Meta of Interfering in Brazil’s Election by Restricting His Posts

​Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has accused Meta of interfering in the country’s election by restricting his activity on its platforms.

​The social media giant “prevented president Lula’s profile from promoting Instagram feed posts,” his campaign said, adding that a post from his official account “experienced an interruption in view counts, which affected its reach.”

The accusation comes after Lula’s campaign found it was temporarily unable to post Facebook ads in September, while far-right election disinformation appeared to circulate widely. 

Amnesty International research found last month that Meta failed to stop ads featuring false claims about where to vote and calling for the military to “take back power”.

​Lula came second behind far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro in a first round of voting on 4 October, and the race now goes to a run-off on 25 October that Bolsonaro is considered more likely to win.

Lula’s campaign said that before the 4 October vote, his profile “suddenly disappeared from Instagram’s search function” along with those of other leftwing leaders.

“The series of technical issues… raises strong suspicions that Meta’s actions constitute an attempt to interfere in the Brazilian electoral process to the benefit of Flávio Bolsonaro’s candidacy,” it added. The campaign has filed a complaint with the electoral court. 

​The election has been marred by widespread accusations of interference by the US. In July US president Donald Trump announced a new 25% trade tariff against Brazil after meeting with Bolsonaro. More than half of Brazil’s voters believe the move was intended to sway the election against Lula, a Datafolha poll found.

Meta’s Brazil office said the accusations from Lula’s team were “simply false” and “not supported by the facts”. 

The company told AFP: “Many of the technical issues mentioned did not affect only Brazil or specific accounts. We comply with electoral regulations and are committed to a level playing field regarding the use of our platforms.”