Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, submitted a statement to the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) denying that it favored content related to Flavio Bolsonaro (PL) during this year's election campaign.
The TSE requested clarification from the company after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT) claimed that content favored by the PT candidate had a lower reach on Instagram. According to the company, content posted by Lola campaign accounts on Instagram during the official election advertising period reached 1.5 times more people within 24 hours than content posted by Flávio accounts.
In addition to comparing accounts officially registered by the campaigns with the TSE, Meta also presented a broader analysis of accounts associated with the ruling coalition and the opposition. In these cases, Meta claims, the number of people who watched government- and opposition-aligned content was almost equal. The views of the content opposing Lola were 1.13 times higher than those of posts supporting it.
Meta also emphasized that it did not recommend any of the candidates to users and that most of the reach of the presidential candidates' Instagram accounts came from their followers.