Meta staff admitted Lula's Instagram was held back during Brazil's election, leaked messages show

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Leaked internal messages from Meta show employees admitting that President Lula's Instagram account was held back during Brazil's election, according to a report out of São Paulo on Friday.

The messages say Lula's official profile could not boost feed posts for almost 24 hours on October 9. At the same time, his rival, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, had his Instagram profile and WhatsApp channel recommended to users. Brazil's election rules say candidate accounts should only show up when someone searches their exact name, so that should not have happened. One employee wrote that Lula's account was limited compared to Bolsonaro's and that there was a high chance of legal action.

Meta says the problems were technical, already public, and hit many accounts. It said any suggestion that it favors one side is false.

The report lands a day after a judge on Brazil's top electoral court ordered Meta to treat both candidates equally through the end of the campaign, including its AI chatbot, or pay about $98,700 a day. Lula and Bolsonaro face each other in a runoff on October 25, with Bolsonaro slightly ahead in the polls.