--- title: "Everywhere and nowhere: what is documented about visibility before Brazil's run-off" description: "Is one run-off candidate everywhere on social media and the other nowhere? What was measured, what Meta admitted, what Brazil's court and prosecutors did, and what is not documented." url: https://attentionmachine.org/en/blog/brazil-runoff-visibility-what-is-documented/ lang: en updated: 2026-10-25 license: "CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)" --- # Everywhere and nowhere: what is documented about visibility before Brazil's run-off 15 October 2026 On 14 October a report by NOS, the Dutch public broadcaster, said that, on social media, one of the two candidates in Brazil’s presidential run-off seemed to be everywhere and the other nowhere. It named no study and no data set[^src-nina-jurna-2026]. Its evidence was one campaign’s account, a single search its reporter ran on Instagram, an order from Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE), and Meta’s first reply. The run-off is on 25 October[^src-organization-american-2026]. Here is what was measured, what Meta admitted, what the court and the federal prosecutors did, and what is not documented, so that you can weigh the next such claim yourself. Like our [earlier post on influence online](https://attentionmachine.org/en/blog/brazil-runoff-what-is-documented/), this one names no candidate or party; some source titles do. “First-placed” and “second-placed” refer to the first round, on 4 October. Quotations from Portuguese are our translation. ## What was measured **Engagement, counted by commercial firms.** These firms sell social-media analytics and publish no full method: industry figures. HypeAuditor[^src-soraia-alves-2026] found that from 24 August to 23 September the first-placed candidate’s Instagram posts drew about 150,000 likes each, against about 50,000 for the second-placed candidate’s. DSC Lab[^src-dsc-2026], counting likes plus comments on Instagram from 14 September to 2 October, found the same gap per post, 329,367 against 137,675, but counted the second-placed candidate ahead on followers (15.4 million against 11.9 million), total engagement (28.9 million against 16.8 million) and views (349.8 million against 155.8 million), from 210 posts against 51. Few posts that each draw a crowd, or many that each draw less: both can be true at once, and neither is “nowhere”. **Tests of what the platforms show.** TecMundo[^src-igor-almenara-2026] reported on 8 October that it had searched Instagram on several phones, each signed in to a different account. Neither candidate’s official account appeared among the first results for his name; typing the full username brought each to the top. Meta told TecMundo: “we do not recommend official candidate accounts registered with the TSE on the surfaces of our apps, including search.” That follows a TSE rule[^src-tribunal-superior-2019] in force since 2024: platforms that use a recommender system “must exclude from the results” the profiles candidates have declared to the court, and what is posted on them, except paid boosting. An unofficial account carrying a candidate’s name can still be recommended. So one search, on one account, shows little. The rule has not always held: a Metrópoles columnist[^src-demetrio-vecchioli-2026] found candidates’ accounts the column did not follow in 3, then 13, of the first 30 posts of the column’s own Instagram feed in August, and the NetLab UFRJ[^src-ufrj-2026] research laboratory found 24 among 1,873 TikTok recommendations in September. Too few to say whether either side gained. **An AI tool that answered one name and not the other.** On 14 October Terra and Olhar Digital[^src-redacao-terra-2026] reported that Meta AI on WhatsApp produced a campaign image for the first-placed candidate’s first name and ballot number, and refused the same request for the second-placed candidate. Meta, citing the electoral rules, then extended its block on images of candidates to first names and ballot numbers. The tests show the asymmetry; they do not show its cause. ## What Meta admitted, and what it denies On 10 October the second-placed candidate’s campaign went to the TSE[^src-andre-richter-2026], alleging that Meta had restricted its reach to its opponent’s benefit: a contested claim, which Meta denies. Meta’s first answer[^src-agencia-estado-2026]: “The allegations are simply false and unsupported by the facts.” Meta’s filing of 12 October is under seal; Metrópoles reported[^src-luana-patriolino-2026] the Reels incident and Meta’s denial, and the complaining campaign’s party summarised the rest. Meta admits two failures. On 23 September it disabled the campaign’s ad account because two earlier restrictions “were wrongly classified as serious”, and restored it “in a little over an hour”. On 7 October Reels view counters were blocked from 15:50 to 20:49, Brasília time, for creators “in more than a hundred countries”. Meta says distribution was not affected, that the official account’s distribution that day was “substantially above its own recent baseline”, and that there is “no technically verifiable evidence of selectivity or manipulation”. Of the network of 255 profiles the complaint cites, from a survey by the Instituto Democracia em Xeque, Meta says it reviewed the 35 it could identify, disabled 7, and found no coordinated inauthentic behaviour among them. That covers 35 profiles, not 255. The data behind all of it is not public. ## What the court and the prosecutors did On 10 October a TSE minister gave Meta 48 hours[^src-agencia-estado-2026-b] to preserve its logs, report profile by profile every measure applied since 16 August, explain 23 September and 7 October, and say whether it applies the recommendation rule “identically for both candidacies”. “The facts alleged,” the decision reads[^src-andre-richter-2026], “occur in an environment that only the respondent controls.” He had not, at this stage, recognised any algorithmic discrimination[^src-tse-2026], Congresso em Foco reported. Meta asked for 48 more hours[^src-luana-patriolino-2026]. As of 15 October we found no ruling. _Update, 19 October 2026: on 15 October the minister granted an injunction[^src-o-tempo-2026] ordering equal treatment of both run-off candidates under a daily fine, while ruling out “for now” manipulation for or against either candidacy; the plenary confirmed it unanimously[^src-o-tempo-2026-b] on 16 October._ The same week, the court suspended a site that offered cryptocurrency[^src-victor-aguiar-2026] for posts supporting the first-placed candidate, finding “indications that the project went beyond spontaneous expression of political support” (9 October), and gave Google 24 hours[^src-marcel-naves-2026] to explain AI answers attributing to the second-placed candidate “false and non-existent statements” (13 October). On 14 October the federal prosecutors’ office for citizens’ rights (MPF/PFDC) opened a procedure[^src-ministerio-publico-2026] on Meta and X, after four civil-society organisations brought it “more than a thousand reports” of accounts and posts taken down. The platforms have five days to say whether these follow court orders or algorithms. Self-gathered reports do not measure how often each side is restricted. ## What is not documented No independent study with a published method shows that a platform held back one candidate or pushed the other in this campaign. Débora Salles of NetLab UFRJ told DW[^src-vinicius-lemos-2026]: “It is very hard to say there is interference in the campaign \[…] only on the basis of the data we can access today. It is not that such interference cannot exist, but platforms today work as a black box”. So deliberate favouritism remains contested: from outside, it can be neither shown nor ruled out, and nor can the denial be checked. ## How one side can look everywhere without anyone choosing it Each is documented; none has been measured for this election. - **The rule moves reach elsewhere.** With official accounts kept out of recommendations[^src-tribunal-superior-2019], candidates reach people through followers, shares, paid ads, and allied or unofficial accounts. The side with the denser network of allies can look more present. - **Ranking rewards reactions.** In US data, posts about the political out-group[^src-rathje-2021] “were shared or retweeted about twice as often as posts about the in-group”. Twitter’s own researchers[^src-huszar-2022] found that “in six out of seven countries studied, the mainstream political right enjoys higher algorithmic amplification than the mainstream political left”; Brazil was not among them. - **Meta changed what it recommends.** In January 2025 it said it would “recommend more political content based on these personalized signals”[^src-joel-kaplan-2025], such as likes and views, without saying when in Brazil. - **Some amplification is paid or rewarded**, like the cryptocurrency site[^src-victor-aguiar-2026]. How much, nobody has measured. So ask: what was measured, by whom, with what method? Per post or in total? One search, or many? Is the source a party to the dispute? Both parties have given the court their account; the court has asked for the data. How a ranked feed decides what you see is on [How It Works](https://attentionmachine.org/en/attention-machine/how-it-works/); what is known from other elections, on [Elections & Democratic Harm](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/elections/). We will re-read these sources after the run-off and correct this post if any of them changes. ## Sources [^src-organization-american-2026]: Organization of American States, [_Preliminary Report of the OAS Electoral Observation Mission in Brazil_](https://www.oas.org/fpdb/press/2026_EOM_Brazil_General_Elections_First_Report_ENG.pdf), 6 October 2026; the OAS also published it in Portuguese. [^src-nina-jurna-2026]: Nina Jurna, [_In presidentsrace Brazilië lijkt Bolsonaro op sociale media overal en Lula nergens_](https://nos.nl/artikel/2634941-in-presidentsrace-brazilie-lijkt-bolsonaro-op-sociale-media-overal-en-lula-nergens), NOS Nieuws, 14 October 2026: names no study, researcher, data set or document. [^src-soraia-alves-2026]: Soraia Alves, [_Lula tem mais seguidores, mas Flávio Bolsonaro cresce mais nas redes sociais, diz análise_](https://exame.com/marketing/lula-tem-mais-seguidores-mas-flavio-bolsonaro-cresce-mais-nas-redes-sociais-diz-analise/), Exame, 2 October 2026: figures from HypeAuditor, an influencer-marketing analytics firm (industry figures; no full method published). [^src-dsc-2026]: DSC Lab, [_Nas últimas 48 horas, Flávio Bolsonaro engaja mais que Lula com um quarto dos posts_](https://static.poder360.com.br/uploads/2026/10/engajamento-lula-flavio-3out.pdf), press release, 3 October 2026, published by Poder360: a data and communication consultancy that names "proprietary methodologies" (industry figures; engagement is likes plus comments). [^src-vinicius-lemos-2026]: Vinícius Lemos, [_Embate de Lula com a Meta expõe desafios para fiscalizar redes sociais_](https://www.dw.com/pt-br/embate-de-lula-com-a-meta-exp%C3%B5e-desafios-para-fiscalizar-redes-sociais/a-79659638), DW Brasil, 14 October 2026: Débora Salles (NetLab UFRJ). [^src-igor-almenara-2026]: Igor Almenara Carneiro, [_Instagram esconde perfil de Lula e Flávio Bolsonaro? TecMundo verificou_](https://www.estadao.com.br/tecmundo/big-techs/instagram-esconde-perfil-de-lula-e-flavio-bolsonaro-tecmundo-verificou/), TecMundo, 8 October 2026; it quotes Meta. [^src-tribunal-superior-2019]: Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, [_Resolução nº 23.610, de 18 de dezembro de 2019_](https://www.tse.jus.br/legislacao/compilada/res/2019/resolucao-no-23-610-de-18-de-dezembro-de-2019), compiled text: art. 28 § 1º-A, added by Resolution 23.732 of 2024. [^src-demetrio-vecchioli-2026]: Demétrio Vecchioli, [_Meta descumpre regra eleitoral e recomenda perfis de candidatos_](https://www.metropoles.com/colunas/demetrio-vecchioli/meta-descumpre-regra-eleitoral-e-recomenda-perfis-de-candidatos), Metrópoles, 17 August 2026, with Meta's reply of 18 August. [^src-ufrj-2026]: NetLab UFRJ, [_Nota Técnica: TikTok recomenda conteúdos de candidatos e contraria normas eleitorais_](https://netlab.eco.ufrj.br/post/nota-técnica-tiktok-recomenda-conteúdos-de-candidatos-e-contraria-normas-eleitorais), 1 October 2026: four test profiles, web TikTok without login. [^src-redacao-terra-2026]: Redação Terra, [_Meta AI no WhatsApp gera imagem de 'Flávio 22', mas recusa 'Lula 13' e 'Flávio Bolsonaro 22'_](https://www.terra.com.br/noticias/eleicoes/meta-ai-no-whatsapp-gera-imagem-de-flavio-22-mas-recusa-lula-13-e-flavio-bolsonaro-22,b9e8fe6be5612c0fd231ad682406c4ecgjplwayc.html), Terra, 14 October 2026; Ana Luiza Figueiredo, [_Meta AI apresenta resultados diferentes em pedidos com Lula e Flávio_](https://olhardigital.com.br/2026/10/14/pro/meta-ai-apresenta-resultados-diferentes-em-pedidos-com-lula-e-flavio), Olhar Digital, 14 October 2026; André Richter, [_Campanha de Lula vai ao TSE após IA da Meta restringir buscas_](https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/justica/noticia/2026-10/campanha-de-lula-vai-ao-tse-apos-ia-da-meta-restringir-buscas), Agência Brasil, 14 October 2026: Meta's statement on the block. [^src-andre-richter-2026]: André Richter, [_TSE manda Meta esclarecer restrições a postagens da campanha de Lula_](https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/justica/noticia/2026-10/tse-manda-meta-esclarecer-restricoes-postagens-da-campanha-de-lula), Agência Brasil, 11 October 2026: the complaint, the 48 hours, and the minister's sentence. [^src-agencia-estado-2026]: Agência Brasil, [_Meta alega problemas técnicos para menor alcance de Lula nas redes_](https://www.dgabc.com.br/Noticia/4352145/meta-alega-problemas-tecnicos-para-menor-alcance-de-lula-nas-redes), as published by Diário do Grande ABC, 11 October 2026: Meta's statement. [^src-luana-patriolino-2026]: Luana Patriolino and Manoela Alcântara, [_Meta nega operar para favorecer ou prejudicar candidatos nas eleições_](https://www.metropoles.com/colunas/manoela-alcantara/meta-nega-operar-para-favorecer-ou-prejudicar-candidatos-nas-eleicoes), Metrópoles, 13 October 2026; Madu Toledo, [_Meta nega interferência e diz que falha técnica global travou views de Lula_](https://www.metropoles.com/brasil/meta-nega-interferencia-e-diz-que-falha-tecnica-global-travou-views-de-lula), Metrópoles, 13 October 2026; the complaining party's summary of the filing, [_Meta remove 7 perfis irregulares e admite bloqueio indevido de conta de anúncios de Lula_](https://pt.org.br/meta-remove-7-perfis-irregulares-e-admite-bloqueio-indevido-de-conta-de-anuncios-de-lula/), 13 October 2026 (a party source; its ad-account and profile figures were confirmed by the court's decision of 15 October, as reported by [O Tempo](https://www.otempo.com.br/eleicoes/2026/presidentes/2026/10/15/bellizze-manda-meta-garantir-tratamento-igualitario-a-flavio-bolsonaro-e-a-lula)). Meta's filing itself is not public. [^src-agencia-estado-2026-b]: Agência Estado, [_TSE determina que dona do Facebook esclareça em 48h restrições a posts da campanha de Lula_](https://www.dgabc.com.br/Noticia/4352067/tse-determina-que-dona-do-facebook-esclareca-em-48h-restricoes-a-posts-da-campanha-de-lula), Diário do Grande ABC, 10 October 2026: what the order asks of Meta. The decision itself: [despacho in case 0602746-69.2026.6.00.0000](https://static.congressoemfoco.com.br/2026/10/10/attachment/2026/10/10/4badc1_despacho_2746_69.pdf), signed 10 October 2026. [^src-o-tempo-2026]: [_Bellizze manda Meta garantir tratamento igualitário a Flávio Bolsonaro e a Lula_](https://www.otempo.com.br/eleicoes/2026/presidentes/2026/10/15/bellizze-manda-meta-garantir-tratamento-igualitario-a-flavio-bolsonaro-e-a-lula), O Tempo, 15 October 2026: the injunction. [^src-o-tempo-2026-b]: [_TSE referenda liminar de Bellizze e manda Meta dar tratamento igualitário a Flávio Bolsonaro e Lula_](https://www.otempo.com.br/eleicoes/2026/2026/10/16/tse-referenda-liminar-de-bellizze-e-manda-meta-dar-tratamento-igualitario-a-flavio-bolsonaro-e-lula), O Tempo, 16 October 2026: the plenary's unanimous referendum. [^src-tse-2026]: [_TSE questiona Meta sobre possível restrição a campanha de Lula_](https://www.congressoemfoco.com.br/noticia/123160/tse-questiona-meta-sobre-possivel-restricao-a-campanha-de-lula), Congresso em Foco, 10 October 2026. [^src-victor-aguiar-2026]: Victor Aguiar and Rebeca Ligabue, [_TSE manda derrubar site que oferecia criptomoedas por posts pró-Flávio_](https://www.metropoles.com/sao-paulo/tse-manda-derrubar-site-que-oferecia-criptomoedas-por-posts-pro-flavio), Metrópoles, 9 October 2026. [^src-marcel-naves-2026]: Marcel Naves, [_TSE dá prazo de 24 horas para Google esclarecer respostas de IA envolvendo Lula_](https://viva.com.br/politica/tse-da-prazo-de-24-horas-para-google-se-manifestar-sobre-respostas-de-ia-envolvendo-lula.html), Viva, 13 October 2026. [^src-ministerio-publico-2026]: Ministério Público Federal, [_MPF abre procedimento para apurar derrubada de perfis e postagens nas redes sociais no período eleitoral_](https://www.mpf.mp.br/o-mpf/unidades/procuradoria-geral-da-republica-pgr/noticias/mpf-abre-procedimento-para-apurar-derrubada-de-perfis-e-postagens-nas-redes-sociais-durante-o-periodo-eleitoral), 14 October 2026: the organisations are Artigo 19, Conectas, Sleeping Giants Brasil and CTRL+Z. [^src-rathje-2021]: Rathje, S., Van Bavel, J. J. and van der Linden, S. (2021), [_Out-group animosity drives engagement on social media_](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2024292118), PNAS 118(26), US data. [^src-huszar-2022]: Huszár, F., Ktena, S. I., O'Brien, C., Belli, L., Schlaikjer, A. and Hardt, M. (2022), [_Algorithmic amplification of politics on Twitter_](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2025334119), PNAS 119(1), by researchers then working for Twitter: legislators' tweets in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the UK and the US. [^src-joel-kaplan-2025]: Joel Kaplan, [_More Speech and Fewer Mistakes_](https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes/), Meta, 7 January 2025. [← All posts](https://attentionmachine.org/en/blog/)\ [About this project →](https://attentionmachine.org/en/about/) --- Some content on this site was created with the assistance of AI tools and may contain errors. [How we use AI →](https://attentionmachine.org/en/about/how-we-use-ai/)