In Brazil’s elections, big techs’ transparency and cooperation policies translate as governance washing, according to this expert

Fernanda Canofre · Global Voices · Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Text excerpted and formatting simplified; media and third-party quotations excluded. No endorsement implied.

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Rio de Janeiro’s Federal University NetLab has been following closely how this election unfolds on social media

Art by Global Voices, created in Canva Pro.

Amid a series of corruption scandals, the 2026 general election in Brazil is also flooded with headlines about social media companies’ role in the campaign. Users supporting the candidacy of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the incumbent center-left candidate running for re-election, have been reporting a sudden drop in their Instagram Stories views when posting about politics. They say that Meta AI refused to generate images featuring Lula’s name and party number, while delivering the same request for Flávio Bolsonaro, his far-right opponent and the son of the imprisoned former president Jair Bolsonaro.

On October 16, Meta admitted technical problems on its platforms which affected how pro-Lula content was delivered to users. As reported by the Associated Press, despite acknowledging “global technical glitches, strict anti-fraud measures, and regulatory compliance rather than targeted suppression,” the company that owns Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook denied any political bias.

Lula filed a complaint against Meta accusing the company of using biased algorithms and AI restrictions to favor Bolsonaro in the run-up to the election, with a judge from the country’s top electoral court ruling that Meta must adopt measures to ensure equal treatment.

With an estimated population of 214 million, Brazil is an important market for social media platforms. It ranks as the second country by number of WhatsApp users and saw the internet become a key component of Jair Bolsonaro’s ascent around 10 years ago.

To understand the current election scenario, Global Voices spoke to Nicole Sanchotene, project coordinator at NetLab, a research laboratory at Rio de Janeiro’s Federal University (UFRJ) that has been publishing reports on the impact of big tech on the electoral campaign. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Global Voices: What have you identified in NetLab’s recent reports about the elections?

GV: How important are such platforms in Brazilians’ daily lives?

GV: People have claimed they noticed a sudden drop in their Instagram stories views after posting about politics, especially if they are leftists. Leandro Demori, a journalist, published screenshots showing his stories fell from an average of one million or 400,000 views to 9,000. Have you been reporting on that?

GV: How do you evaluate the electoral justice work in this campaign? Recently, we had a ruling battle to take down and then reinstate a pro-Lula WhatsApp channel.

GV: Which takes us to another highly politicized issue in Brazil: the regulation of social media. The far-right calls it censorship, while other groups say it’s necessary. With what we’re seeing in this campaign, does it get another angle?

GV: And, in a more serious scenario, all these elements that you just pointed out could define an election, change the ruling in a country?

GV: What does this election in Brazil leave as a lesson?

Source: Global Voices ↗