Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s marketing campaign has requested the disqualification of right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro in the lead up to the last spherical of the presidential election on Sunday over alleged interference by social media company Meta.
In a petition filed to the nation’s prime electoral court on Wednesday, the leftist incumbent president accused Meta, the tech giant behind Whatsapp, Instagram and Facebook, of limiting its content material to enhance Bolsonaro’s marketing campaign.
In response, Bolsonaro filed a petition looking for to disqualify Lula over what he said was the mass dissemination of authorities posts on WhatsApp.
The company has denied the campaigns have been handled unequally.
It comes after UN specialists said on Wednesday that they were involved about reports of discrepancies in the capability of each marketing campaign to attain voters on Meta’s platforms.
A report led by the UN’s particular rapporteur on freedom of expression said Meta must guarantee a degree taking part in discipline online during the election.
It cited incidents including “temporary interruptions of one candidate’s campaign account; differences in audience engagement, user feeds, view counts and reach; restrictions on that campaign’s Instagram posts”.
“Information, including from Meta employees, suggests that accounts linked to one side of the presidential race were disproportionately curtailed,” it learn.
Meta has denied taking motion to favour one aspect of the election and has said it would comply with an order from a Brazilian court to deal with Bolsonaro and Lula equally.
Lula’s marketing campaign had beforehand filed a grievance alleging that accounts and content material associated to Bolsonaro were boosted.
Users also reported that Meta’s artificial intelligence instruments were not producing pictures associated to Lula.
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