In a unanimous ruling, Brazil’s top electoral court found no preliminary evidence that US tech giant Meta had deliberately acted to influence the outcome of last month’s presidential election runoff, but fined its Facebook platform 7.5 million reais ($1.34 million) for failing to fully comply with judicial orders.“The records contain technical failures acknowledged by Facebook itself, but there are no elements allowing us to conclude, on a preliminary basis, that there was deliberate action to unbalance the election,” Justice Marco Aurelio Bellizze wrote in the ruling, referring to submissions made by Meta.“That conclusion would require robust evidence, to be produced through the appropriate legal proceedings,” he added.The coalition led by leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who secured re-election, had filed a complaint ahead of last month’s vote, alleging restrictions on the distribution of its posts, the activity of purportedly inauthentic accounts, failures to identify AI-generated content and disparities in the functioning of Meta’s tools that allegedly favoured right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.Bolsonaro lost the runoff despite securing more votes than Lula in the first round. He has since fled to the US with his family.Meta informed the court last month that it had adopted measures to ensure equal treatment of the two campaigns.“Meta complies with Brazilian electoral law and applies the same rules to all candidates and parties. We will continue to present the facts and defend ourselves against false allegations in the ongoing legal proceedings,” the Mark Zuckerberg-led company maintained in a statement on Wednesday.However, the court found that Meta had either failed to comply with certain directives, only partially fulfilled them or acted after the stipulated deadlines.According to Justice Bellizze, the fine reflected the company’s overall conduct in responding to the court’s orders, including delays, incomplete information and difficulties in verifying some of the data submitted.The penalty comprises three daily fines of 500,000 reais between October 17 and 19, followed by six daily fines of 1 million reais between October 20 and 25.Lula has long pledged to tighten regulations governing social media in Brazil. In his victory speech, he declared: “We had to overcome foreign interference in the election, coming from outside through digital platforms that we will have to regulate.”(With Reuters inputs)
