Meta Approves Human Review for Campaign Ad Bans in Brazil
Meta informed the Brazilian Electoral Court that bans on election ad accounts will undergo human review within two hours until the October 25 round, denying any bias toward any candidate.
Meta denied on Tuesday favoring any presidential candidate in Brazil's runoff round, and informed the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) that it has implemented mandatory human review for automated restrictions on election ad accounts within two hours until Sunday's vote, according to media reports. The response came after a complaint from Lula's Workers' Party (PT), which accused Meta of restricting its campaign content and favoring Flávio Bolsonaro, according to the UOL website.
Meta asked the court not to impose fines, stating that it complied with orders in good faith. The dispute follows measures ordered by the Superior Electoral Court to ensure equal treatment for candidates. The court also requested adjustments to Meta's artificial intelligence tools following concerns over their ability to generate election content about candidates.
Meta said it reviewed 1,204 posts flagged as AI-generated, removing or blocking 720 of them for violating rules on labeling election content, while 270 posts were properly labeled and 214 were unrelated to the elections. The company introduced a whitelist restricting paid political advertising in Brazil to candidates, parties, coalitions, and federations registered with the electoral court.
Meta explained that technical limitations on Instagram forced it to disable recommendations for all collaborative posts instead of just the candidate's profile, and that it requested an urgent meeting with the electoral court to discuss remaining technical issues before the runoff round. The runoff between Lula and Bolsonaro is scheduled for October 25, and Meta denies that content moderation affects election integrity.
What do these terms mean?
Superior Electoral Court: The Brazilian judicial authority responsible for organizing elections and overseeing political campaigning.
Election content labeling: Requiring platforms to clarify that content is AI-generated or election-related, to prevent misinformation.
Whitelist: A restricted list of entities allowed to purchase paid political advertising, such as registered candidates and parties.
Runoff round: A second-round vote held between the top candidates when neither achieves the required majority.
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