{"id":657008,"date":"2026-10-16T23:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T23:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/657008\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T23:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T23:06:08","slug":"hands-off-brazilians-protest-outside-meta-in-dublin-over-claims-of-election-bias-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/657008\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hands off\u2019: Brazilians protest outside Meta in Dublin over claims of election bias \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brazilians living in Dublin protested outside Meta<\/a>\u2019s Irish office on Friday amid claims the social media<\/a> giant is influencing Brazil<\/a>\u2019s highly polarised election in favour of Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n

Protesters supporting president Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva<\/a> in the country\u2019s runoff election taking place later this month held signs reading, \u201cHands off Brazilian elections,\u201d and, \u201cMeta, stay out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The demonstrators have called for greater transparency from social media platforms after Lula filed a complaint in court accusing the tech company behind Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp of using biased algorithms and AI<\/a> restrictions to favour his opponent, Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n

Fl\u00e1vio is the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro<\/a>, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence after being convicted over a plot to overturn the 2022 election result.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s top electoral court ruled on Thursday that Meta must adopt measures to immediately secure equal treatment of the two candidates in advance of the October 25th election.<\/p>\n

\u201cFake news is becoming normalised, and falsehoods are being treated as the truth. This is worrying,\u201d said protester Erika Normande at Meta\u2019s Dublin\u2019s offices on Friday evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeta has been changing the reach of posts and interfering in our elections. We are here to protest against interference in president Lula\u2019s campaign,\u201d said another, Ma\u00edra Amaral.<\/p>\n

Fl\u00e1vio attempted to woo the support of US president Donald Trump<\/a> and his administration, meeting him at the White House in May. He has received public praise from Trump.<\/p>\n

Lula, who is seeking a fourth presidential term, has said the president\u2019s posts have suffered reduced reach and visibility, while his team have faced difficulties promoting content on Instagram. They also allege that Meta\u2019s distribution systems favour Fl\u00e1vio.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Can Lula defy history? Brazil\u2019s left seeks unprecedented run-off turnaroundOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Lula\u2019s campaign has questioned why 255 accounts it considers inauthentic, allegedly operated using artificial intelligence, remain active.<\/p>\n

It filed a complaint with Brazil\u2019s Superior Electoral Court after the first round of voting. On October 10th, the court gave Meta 48 hours to explain its content distribution practices.<\/p>\n

The company blamed the reduced reach on technical problems, denied favouring Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro, and said it complies with electoral rules and treats candidates equally.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unfortunate that minor technical issues are being spun into a political narrative,\u201d Meta said in a statement to The New York Times.<\/p>\n

However, Andr\u00e9 Almo, a protester outside Meta\u2019s head office in Dublin, said: \u201cWe are now completely controlled by platforms that are based outside our country.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrazil is being held hostage by Meta, which is changing its algorithms in favour of a candidate who follows the American agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brazil has almost 160 million registered voters eligible to vote in the 2026 election.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Brazil turns right: Bolsonaro in pole position as election goes to run-offOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In the first round of the election, on October 4th, Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro finished the first round with 47 per cent of valid votes, compared with 45 per cent for Lula.<\/p>\n

Slightly more than 20 per cent of voters did not cast votes, the highest abstention rate in the first round of a Brazilian presidential election since 1998.<\/p>\n

There are an estimated 80,000 Brazilians living in Ireland, according to the Brazilian embassy, with more than 16,700 registered to vote here.<\/p>\n

One protester in Dublin claims that Brazil was \u201csuffering from American digital colonisation\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brazilians living in Dublin protested outside Meta\u2019s Irish office on Friday amid claims the social media giant is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[218,1347,969,61,60,7636,7634,1226,43,58],"class_list":["post-657008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-brazil","tag-donald-trump","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jair-bolsonaro","tag-luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva","tag-meta","tag-news","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}