Meta’s corporate offices in São Paulo are the site of ongoing protests against election interference in the crucial national run-off elections in Brazil. Hundreds of protestors rallied at the company’s offices on Tuesday, carrying effigies mocking Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as the devil incarnate, Venezuelan publication TeleSur reported.
The demonstration coincided with an order by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court demanding that Meta release proof it was providing equitable treatment to both of Brazil’s presidential candidates.
Meta’s moderation methods came under international scrutiny earlier this month, after the company restricted over 1,000 social media accounts belonging to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who’s viewed as something like the Bernie Sanders of the Brazilian political scene. At the same time, Lula’s allies have accused Meta of artificially boosting content from the far-right contender for the office, Flávio Bolsonaro.
Outraged at the perceived election meddling, protestors descended on Meta’s offices with Zuckerberg masks, signs, and massive paper heads. One protest sign showed a scowling Zuckerberg with dollar signs over his eyes and “bilionario safado” scrawled in blood-red paint, translating roughly to “billionaire scoundrel.”
Others carried signs demanding “não se Meta,” or “Meta stay out,” putting extra public pressure behind the judicial demand.
For its part, Meta has publicly denied any wrongdoing with its handling of the Brazilian election materials, insisting that any perceived imbalance was caused by two global service outages, per the Associated Press.
Whether intentional or not, Brazil isn’t the only country whose political direction is quietly being dictated by the whims of a trillion-dollar tech corporation. Over the weekend, the Guardian reported that Meta had temporarily suspended Instagram accounts belonging to the No Kings coalition, a broad-tent liberal grouping which has been mobilizing protests and voter-registration drives across the US.
It all comes as higher-ups at Instagram admit they have no clue how to stem the tide of AI content flooding onto the app. Until Meta submits its explanation to the Superior Electoral Court, it remains to be seen how the extremely powerful media platform can simultaneously censor thousands of political accounts during a pivotal election cycle, while being powerless to stop the deluge of harmful AI slop suffocating its users.
More on protests: 78-Year-Old Woman Hauled Off In Handcuffs After Blocking Delivery Robot
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