Brazil Fines Meta 7.5 Million Real Over Election Campaign Complaints

Faced with non-compliance over election campaign complaints, Facebook was ordered by the Superior Electoral Court to pay a 7.5 million real penalty, equivalent to 1.3 million US dollars.

The Tech TL;DR:

• The Superior Electoral Court penalized Meta 7.5 million real for failing to fully satisfy tribunal requirements regarding electoral campaign complaints.
• Sanctions included daily fines ranging from 500,000 real to 1 million real levied across October.
• Court proceedings recognized technical errors by the platform but found no evidence of intentional interference in election regularity.

TSE Rules Facebook Failed to Satisfy Tribunal Requirements

With a unanimous ruling, the TSE established that Facebook failed to fully satisfy requirements imposed by the tribunal regarding allegations that the platform treated political campaigns unfairly.

The complaints involved the presidential campaign of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the campaign of Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.

Before the vote, Lula’s coalition presented a formal complaint concerning limited post access, the appearance of fake accounts, AI-generated content detection flaws, and imbalances in Meta’s algorithm.

Judge Marco Aurelio Bellizze said that Meta provided part of the requested documentation, but only partially or by delaying the fulfillment of specific requirements.

Court records recognized technical errors, though the proceedings concluded there were no elements proving the platform intentionally compromised the regularity of the elections.

The 7.5 million real penalty was determined based on Meta’s overall compliance level with tribunal directives, specifically noting delays, incomplete information, and difficulties verifying certain data.

According to announcements regarding the sentence, the fines included a daily sanction of 500,000 real amounting to 90,000 US dollars per day for three days from October 17 to October 19.

An additional fine of 1 million real totaling 180,000 US dollars per day was applied for six days from October 20 to October 25.

Meta Rejects Accusations of Political Bias During 2022 Elections

In a statement released before the court ruling, Meta rejected accusations of political bias.

During the 2022 presidential elections in Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defeated opponent Jair Bolsonaro by a margin of over 4.4 million votes in the second round, despite trailing behind in the first round.