Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page and Campaign Ads

Meta disabled the Facebook page of Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and restricted the advertising account linked to his campaign on Wednesday, 23 September. The page is back online, but the Workers' Party (PT) and the "Brazil Ready for More" electoral coalition say the platform gave no justification and that the restriction damaged the campaign.

Campaign asks for human review

In a complaint sent to Meta on Thursday, the campaign demanded the immediate restoration of the ad account "Eleições 2026 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Presidente", so that it could run new ads and share audiences again. The legal team also asked that the case go to "direct human review by analysts from the platform's legal and compliance department".

Lawyers asked the company to "immediately contain, freeze and preserve all digital evidence linked to the account, including log records and the full database of the account". According to the appeal, the account was disabled "unilaterally, without cause and without any objective justification", and the move surprised Lula and those running his campaign.

Less than eleven days before the first round

The first round of Brazil's general election is due on 4 October. The campaign's legal team said the restriction came with less than 11 days to go, and argued that unilaterally limiting a candidate's accounts and channels is "extremely serious" under electoral law.

The complaint states that the case shows Meta "ignoring the systemic risks to the election".

Disinformation tests preceded the block

The decision came eight days after the Eko Movement published a test in which 87% of the political disinformation ads it contracted with Meta were approved. The organisation said the approved material included "AI ads depicting execution-style threats against lawmakers and calling for a 'stop the steal'-style coup". On 25 August, Amnesty International reported that Meta had failed to block most of 15 AI-generated political disinformation ads that it had set up to test the company's respect for Brazilian law.

Court action not ruled out

The campaign says it may file "lawsuits aimed at preserving the rights of the affected political actors, as well as holding the application provider civilly, criminally and electorally liable". Éden Valadares, the Workers' Party's national communications secretary, said the party has not ruled out taking the case to the Superior Electoral Court.

"Brazil's electoral contest, its campaigns and its vote cannot be left at the mercy of the political preferences of the big tech companies, whose supposed programming errors only hit and harm one campaign and one candidate," Valadares wrote on X.

The report was first published by Brasil 247 and republished in English by Pan American Dispatch.