Social Media Takes Center Stage in Brazil's Presidential Election

Brazil's presidential election is entering its final stretch with two remaining candidates: incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro. The decisive round is expected on Sunday, and observers predict a very tight race.

In the final days, the big question is whether the digital playing field is truly fair for both candidates. Meta — the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram — faces allegations before Brazil's Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) that it restricted Lula's content and facilitated material supporting Bolsonaro.

Meta's platforms are among the most popular social networks in Brazil, and political advertising spending on them has surged. An analysis by news outlet G1 found Meta received at least 288 million Brazilian reais (about $57 million) from direct campaign spending in 2026, double the amount it received during the 2022 presidential race.

The increase reflects a shift in how Brazil runs elections. More than 76% of Brazilian voters now get their news online, according to researcher Andre K Rodarte of the Center for Digital Democracy at the University of Southern Denmark.

As social media overtakes traditional advertising, Rodarte explained that more and more politicians use provocative, fast-spreading messages to connect with voters. He cited the success of online influencers such as right-wing figure Nikolas Ferreira and left-wing activist Erika Hilton, who were just re-elected to Brazil's Chamber of Deputies with record vote counts.

"You are seeing people move from information production into politics, and they increasingly have more power, more votes," Rodarte told Al Jazeera. "If this is the media environment they face, it is unlikely they will adopt a different campaign style or a different kind of politics."

However, critics warn that this shift toward online campaigning leaves candidates dependent on big tech companies and their biases.

Regulatory efforts

According to anthropologist Leticia Cesarino of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, who studies right-wing online politics, dependence on online campaigning began to explode in Brazil in 2018 with the victory of President Jair Bolsonaro — father of candidate Flavio Bolsonaro.

When he first ran for president eight years ago, Jair Bolsonaro promised a hard line on crime and a return to traditional Christian family values, which he conveyed through short social media posts. At his 2019 inauguration, supporters chanted "Facebook!" and "WhatsApp!" to show support for his online presence.

"Since then, the left and pro-democracy forces have gradually recognized the importance of this type of media for elections and learned to deploy it strategically," Cesarino said. "However, they still lag significantly behind the right in digital communication, especially because the logic of the attention economy structurally favors alarmist, simplistic and highly emotional right-wing discourse."

During his presidency, Jair Bolsonaro used social media to sow doubt about the accuracy of Brazil's electoral system. After losing the 2022 election, he continued to spread false claims that the vote had been rigged. His supporters then stormed three buildings — Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace — in the capital Brasilia on January 8, 2023, after Lula was sworn in.

As a result, the TSE ruled that Jair Bolsonaro abused his position to undermine the election and banned him from public office for eight years. He is currently serving a 27-year sentence in a separate case over an alleged coup plot and is also barred from using social media.

The scandal "really pushed many policymakers and political elites into action," according to Vicky Wyatt, campaign director at Eko, a coalition fighting for more accountable tech companies.

Although Brazil had already passed several laws on privacy and data protection, leaders added many new regulations after Jair Bolsonaro's term. Brazilian law now bans AI-generated images of candidates and requires any political ad using AI to carry a disclaimer. Content promoting violence, hate speech or gender-based discrimination is also illegal. Only entities backed by official campaigns may run ads on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp.

According to Wyatt, Brazil now has "one of the strictest sets of laws in the world on guardrails for the use of AI on tech platforms." However, these laws have met resistance. In a statement to Al Jazeera, a Meta spokesperson described the regulations as a potential threat to free speech, arguing that "Brazil's strict digital content rules increase the risk of over-enforcement and threaten freedom of expression."

Meta accused of flouting rules

Tech companies such as Meta are supposed to present compliance plans under Brazilian law to the regulator. However, evidence suggests Meta has not fulfilled its obligations.

Daniela da Silva, executive director of digital rights nonprofit CTRL+Z, said several campaign coordinators found their posts were not shared as widely as expected. "They noticed that organic reach had declined since the start of the election season, and they needed to boost their posts," she said, adding that some coordinators reported spending more than 70% of their budget on boosting posts on Meta.

As of October, CTRL+Z said it had collected 1,100 reports this year of accounts removed or with restricted reach. The organization determined that "the cases mainly involved profiles supporting Lula," including Lula's own advertising account, which was briefly suspended last month.

Lula's campaign has cited research by Eko, CTRL+Z and other groups to petition the TSE to intervene and enforce regulations requiring equal treatment between political campaigns.

Watchdog groups have also questioned whether social media platforms are complying with rules requiring them to remove disinformation and restrict AI-generated content.

One test by Eko asked Meta to approve 15 election-season ads containing AI-generated content, including content promoting violence and disinformation. In 13 cases, the platform approved them.

In another study, NetLab — a research group at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro — found Meta allowed more than 1,600 political ads to run on its services even though they were paid for by foreign companies. The group concluded that bad actors appeared to be able to submit ads and label them as non-political, allowing them to run on Meta's platform with little oversight.

According to Debora Gomes Salles, head of research at NetLab, Meta took in 2 million Brazilian reais (about $400,000) from these ads, which she said were apparently aimed at spreading disinformation in Brazil. Some ads told voters they could vote online through a website that collected personal data — something that is entirely illegal in Brazil.

"Meta really cannot prevent these activities from happening, and even if they did something and moderated this content, those ads were still revenue for the company and reached millions of Brazilians," Salles said. "The damage is already done."

Meta has repeatedly denied favoring any presidential candidate this year. In a statement to Al Jazeera, a spokesperson attributed incidents such as the temporary removal of Lula's campaign ads to technical errors. The company also rejected Eko's report alleging shortcomings in how it moderates campaign ads, insisting its systems correctly identified "content about social issues, elections or politics" and "removed ads that violate our policies."

According to anthropologist Cesarino, digital platforms will likely continue to spread problematic content, and the popularity of this content has contributed to the rise of right-wing figures around the world.

"It is no coincidence that other right-wing 'populists' emerged at the same time as Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, such as Donald Trump in the US or Narendra Modi in India," she said.