Meta says it has adopted a court-ordered two-hour human review for automated restrictions on presidential campaign ad accounts in Brazil, amid allegations of unequal treatment before the country's runoff election.
Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) imposed the review requirement in an earlier order. In its response to the court, Meta said a person would examine automated restrictions on accounts used by presidential campaigns within two hours. The rule applies to both campaigns' ad accounts. The court separately ordered equal treatment and sought details of Meta's compliance within 24 hours.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's campaign alleged that his posts lost reach on Meta's platforms. It also said WhatsApp's AI image-generation tool refused some election-related requests involving Lula while accepting similar requests about Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro. Meta denied favoring either candidate and attributed the difference in AI responses to a gap in its prompt filters.
The TSE said Judge Marco Aurélio Bellizze met with Meta and representatives of both campaigns on Oct. 20, after the company submitted its response.
A related court notice made the higher daily fine conditional on Meta failing to demonstrate full compliance within 24 hours. The daily fine could rise from 500,000 reais ($100,000) to 1 million reais ($200,000).
Meta has separately said its compliance with an election-ad restriction prevents some nongovernmental organizations and news outlets from running social-issue ads in Brazil through the runoff. The company said its systems cannot separate locally defined election ads from a broader ad category, while unpaid posts remain unaffected. Lula and Bolsonaro are due to face each other in the runoff on Oct. 25.
