TL;DR: An admitted ad account error, a chatbot filter flaw, and a mega-viral video put Meta under scrutiny during Brazil’s election. Now the fight is bigger than one campaign: who decides what platforms moderate, and who answers when their systems fail?
What happened: Brazil’s election was last month, and some of the biggest plot twists happened on your feed. Here’s what stood out:
The video. PL lawmaker Nikolas Ferreira posted a clip that topped 100 million views in under a day and kept climbing to 160 million, outpacing videos from Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, and Messi (yes, those guys). The electoral court gave Meta 12 hours to explain whether its algorithm gave the video a boost.
The ad account. Days before the first round, Lula’s campaign ad account went dark. Meta later admitted it was a mistake that lasted a little over an hour.
The chatbot. Meta AI refused to make campaign images for Lula but happily made them for Flávio Bolsonaro. Meta admitted a filter flaw: it blocked the candidates’ names, but not “Flávio” plus his ballot number.
The fallout: Lula’s campaign accused Meta of foreign interference, and the PT said it would take its complaint to the Organization of American States. And the line that drew the loudest applause in Lula’s victory speech? Regulating social media.
The bigger question: The incidents landed in the middle of a fight that goes well beyond Brazil: who decides what platforms moderate, and who answers when their systems fail?
Meta has a clear answer. In January 2025, Mark Zuckerberg said the company would team up with Donald Trump to push back against governments that, in his view, go after American companies and push for more censorship. He called out Europe, and Latin American countries with “secret courts” that can order content removed quietly.
The announcement also came with product changes: Meta said it would end its fact-checking program, starting in the US, and replace it with community notes like X’s. It would also lift restrictions on topics like immigration and gender, and move its moderation teams from California to Texas.
Critics weren’t convinced. Digital rights specialist Bruna Santos told Agência Brasil that Meta was setting up a false choice between US-style free speech and the rest of the world. She also warned the changes could lead to more disinformation.
What’s next: Governments say platforms profit from outrage. Meta says governments are pushing censorship. Expect the debate to keep heating up: Brazil’s government doesn’t have strong support in Congress, but that hasn’t stopped it from pushing.