On 10 November 2026, Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) unanimously fined Meta's Facebook 7.5 million reais, about $1.3 million. Justice Marco Aurélio Bellizze wrote the decision. Per AP's report, the court found that some orders during the presidential runoff campaign were not followed, or were fulfilled incompletely or late.
The number is not arbitrary. AP reports the penalty covers three days at 500,000 reais (17-19 October) and six days at 1 million reais (20-25 October). That is 1.5 million plus 6 million, or 7.5 million reais. The court tied the sum to Facebook's conduct as a whole, including delays and incomplete information.
The strongest case for the court
The case for a firm response is a serious one. Lula's campaign alleged that Meta's algorithms and AI restrictions favoured challenger Flávio Bolsonaro. A runoff lasts only days, so an order that arrives late may as well not arrive. Platforms hold the logs and the technical knowledge, so a court cannot check their claims without their cooperation. If a company can answer an urgent order slowly and pay nothing, deadlines become suggestions. A per-day penalty that rises over time is a standard way to make the cost of delay visible.
The court also raised the pressure in steps. Al Jazeera reported that on 19 October the TSE gave Meta 24 hours to show it was not favouring either candidate. The daily fine doubled from 500,000 to 1 million reais, with the order saying the earlier fine had proven "insufficient." Lula's campaign had said Meta kept his profile from being fully promoted on Instagram and from appearing in searches. Meta denied favouring either side, but admitted some of Lula's campaign ads were taken offline temporarily because of technical errors.
What the ruling did not find
The most important sentence in the decision is about what the court declined to say. AP quotes Bellizze: finding that Meta tried to influence the outcome "would require compelling evidence of intent, to be presented in full proceedings through the appropriate legal channels." The court said there was no such evidence so far.
That restraint matters for anyone who cares about speech and innovation. The fine is for procedural non-compliance, not for bias or manipulation. Those are separate questions, and the court kept them separate. Meta's account, as AP reports it, is that the problems came from unrelated global technical glitches, anti-fraud measures and regulatory compliance, not targeted suppression. The court has not ruled that account false. It has ruled that Meta's responses to specific orders fell short.
This is the right line to draw. A rule that punishes platforms for failing to answer court orders on time is predictable and can be met. A rule that lets a judge infer political intent from an algorithmic outcome in the middle of a campaign is neither. Ranking systems are noisy, and ad rejections and reach changes happen for many reasons. If every uneven result became grounds for a finding of bias, platforms would respond by cutting back on political content altogether, which would hurt candidates of every party and ordinary users.
The legal backdrop
Brazil's platform liability rules sit in the Marco Civil da Internet. Article 19 of Lei 12.965/2014 says that, "to ensure freedom of expression and prevent censorship," an application provider may be held civilly liable for third-party content only if it fails to act after a specific court order. Agência Senado noted in 2024 that the article's constitutionality was then pending at the Supreme Federal Court and that a draft Civil Code reform proposed revoking it. The same report notes that TSE Resolution 23.732/2024 banned deepfakes in campaign content and required disclosure when AI is used in campaign ads.
The design logic of Article 19 is that the court order is the trigger. This fine fits that logic. It enforces the trigger and does not widen what platforms must proactively police. Compliance with specific orders is the foundation of the system, which is why a pro-innovation view should accept penalties for failing it.
Where proportionality could slip
The risks lie in how the approach is used next, not in this decision.
- Escalating fines on short deadlines. The daily penalty doubled within days. That works when a platform is stalling. It is less fair if an order is technically ambiguous, because a company may need real time to work out what "equal treatment" of reach means in practice.
- Vague mandates. An order to treat two campaigns equally is hard to measure. Without a clear metric, compliance reporting turns into a negotiation, and fines follow the court's impression of the effort.
- The unresolved intent question. The court explicitly left open whether any interference happened. The full proceedings should be decided on evidence, with Meta able to contest it, and not on the momentum of this fine.
In practice, courts and platforms would both benefit from technical orders that name the system, the data required and a realistic deadline. Disclosure of the audit method should be part of any remedy.
What to watch
Meta has the option to appeal and has argued it applies "the same rules to every candidate, every party, and every political viewpoint," according to AP. The wider proceedings over alleged abuse of economic power and misuse of social media are still to be decided. The enduring lesson for platforms operating in Brazil is simple: answer court orders fully and on time, and keep records that can show it. The lesson for the court is to hold to the distinction it drew this week, between punishing non-compliance and presuming bad faith.