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Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page, Campaign Ads 2 Weeks from Election

Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page, Campaign Ads 2 Weeks from Election

rbanffy

Comments (224)

  • ocd
    He said the thing that Canada, Greenland, Cuba, and various other countries are worried about, but is either publicly ignored in the US or dismissed as "trolling" by the president.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/25/lula-says-trum...
  • condenser
    Facebook election interference has been going on for a long time in Europe. It's a two-tier system where parties outside the establishment have a far lower ban-threshold.
  • abroszka33
    I hope Lula wins and they will ban Facebook for good after the elections. This is an attack on Brazil’s sovereignty.
  • Etiquette8790
    American terrorists cry wolves about election interference in their country during election period. But the real fact is they interfere in democracy and democratic process across every part of the world. This is to help bolsenaro and destroy BRICS.
  • throwaway27448
    I don't understand why countries don't simply block facebook, instagram, etc. There's zero upside to allowing them.
  • MrToadMan
    A more accurate headline would be 'temporarily blocked' given the first line below the heading is 'The page is now back online' and it seems to have been brought back online the same day.
  • amelius
    I would be in favor of blocking ALL political expressions on social media a few weeks before elections.But this case is something else entirely.
  • dmix
    According to Google, Meta restored their account within hours after it got flagged for some content.This happens all the time on these social media websites. Automatic flagging of content, human reviewers restore it.
  • largbae
    Whether you're for or against Lula, the only logical position is to oppose censorship. Eventually the tool gets used against you too.
  • aretology
    The problem is that US needs subservient explorable countries for its resources, and that's exactly what the other candidate will drliver.
  • alsetmusic
    > They asked Rubio if Trump’s administration would commit to respecting Brazil’s electoral process and requested a response by 1 October. The state department has not yet responded to a request for comment.Completely meaningless. Of course the US (my country) will interfere. And the people doing so will have absolutely no shame about it.
  • smallerfish
    Everybody in tech should read Careless People, not just to learn details about Meta. I'm sure many of us (myself included) have worked at places where the technical challenge outweighs any concerns about the overall company's mission or effect on the world at large. In Facebook's case they have a lot of blood on their hands.
  • forinti
    The US proves "every accusation is a confession" and "accuse them of what you do and call them what you are".
  • KingOfCoders
    The US empire at work. Luckily for all of us its 1955 and the empire is on its last legs.
  • renatovico
    Brasil is never block Facebook at all, WhatsApp is the most used app and Instagram too, only TikTok is relevant competitor, but recent the brazil governor block meta from try control payments like eu did with Gatekeeper rules, sorry but yes this is right vs left but is lot more is about civ social and work class fight, the social media is the New press and society is manipuled
  • N_Lens
    Calculated & orchestrated I believe.
  • Zestymarble45
    Having worked ad review, mass flags like this are usually a dumb classifier, not a plan.
  • Alien1Being
    Meta and Mark are the new Murdoch.Evil always finds new acolytes.
  • dkobia
    No one used to care about elections in other countries, but it seems political polarization is truly globalized now. An election in one country seems to carry such heavy stakes for citizens elsewhere. Why? Transnational disinformation? Sad time.
  • cloudie78
    Waiting for people to realise that this is not a recent Facebook specific development.
  • lifeisstillgood
    In the same way USA is realising “holy crap all our stuff is made in China”, every non-US company is realising “holy crap, all our news and information runs through a couple of American web sites”Yes this looks like a overly enthusiastic attempt to block disinformation during an election (a good thing, and also LuLa will be sailing close to that line if not over it)But Brazils most famous election candidate just booked his whole campaign on Facebook. I bet he prints the flyers in Brazil, I bet he speaks on Brazilian TV and radio, appears on Brazilian podcasts, but the globalisation race means he has to use American social media.The only response is going to be Balkanisation or ending curation by algorithm.Interesting
  • bell-cot
    If giant foreign corporations, American interventions, or just Zuck were sufficiently unpopular in Brazil, then this could help Lula on election day.Anyone familiar, to comment?
  • jdw64
    Last time I looked, Lula was favored, but this time it seems he's about even with the far-right opponent, Flávio. How do you think it'll turn out?
  • petesergeant
    I mean by all means ban Meta everywhere, but this is a Reddit post linking to a substack post that’s a republish of a heavily politicized new source, and fails to mention the page was restored the same day, and also fails the very basic journalist standard of approaching Meta for comment, so I think we can do a little better here?This would be better, but I guess less anger-tormenting and also you’ll need to translate it yourself: https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/politica/noticia/2026-09/me...
  • dotcoma
    They never said "Don't do evil".Zuck famously said, of his users: "dumb fucks".
  • hkt
    Remember when Facebook was a nice place to talk to your friends,and not an arm of the American state whipping up hatred, spreading misinformation, and interfering with elections?To those who work there, I'd be fascinated to hear an explanation that isn't about dollars.
  • pestatije
    "your account violates our terms of use, if you think that is not the case tell us why not"
  • michelb
    Here we go again
  • johnnyApplePRNG
    Trump is pro Israel. Zuck bends over backwards to get Trump elected.Lula is against the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Zuck blocks his entire campaign page.I wonder why?
  • shevy-java
    Not surprising - Suckerberg is one of the BigBro oligarchs running the USA right now. I think the bigger issue is that so many people helped empower these dictator-like corporations in the first place. That is actually a big problem, that the society world-wide depends on these private companies so much. Why do we not have working alternatives here that are decoupled from these corporations? (I could add US-centric corporations, but let's be honest - other companies as big may behave in the same way. It is also clear that current legislation is ineffective; Suckerberg should be held accountable and be in jail, without way to buy himself out here.)
  • conartist6
    Disgusting. They bent over 5x backwards not to meddle in election politics for Trump (that is: in the era after they banned him for violating policies)
  • stefantalpalaru
    [dead]
  • raverbashing
    Much ado about nothing:- Meta didn't block their page, they blocked their Ad account.- The account has been reestablished alreadyThis was probably because their campaign shipped complete misinformation about the opposing candidate (with several profiles boosting the same misinformation) but when they do it, that's cool, right?
  • gyanchawdhary
    I see most of the comments here being pretty critical of Metas intervention ... Back in 2021 though .. this post seemed to have the opposite effect ..Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25672461its funny how the tables have turned
  • OrdersOfMagnitu
    are they even allowed to do that, damn
  • bonoboTP
    There is no win here. In Europe they simply quit the political advertisement business and simply don't do political ads. Such clear rules work much better. No politics or any politics, free speech etc. Of course nobody really wants free speech. Only free speech for the "correct" side and silence the "dangerous" other side. It's always like that. So then it becomes a game of blaming social media either way. "They allow too much propaganda for Bad Party A! This is misinformation and election interference!" "They banned my preferred Good Party A (same party)! This is censorship and election interference!"There are no easy answers here, and every side just wants social media to support their side and suppress the others.