Brazil's top electoral court on Monday gave US social media giant Meta 24 hours to prove it is treating President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his right-wing opponent Flavio Bolsonaro equally, days before Sunday's decisive presidential runoff, AFP reported.

The order followed allegations by Lula's campaign that Meta — which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram — is suppressing his online content in order to boost Bolsonaro. Those are the campaign's allegations, not findings of the court. Meta has denied taking any action to favour one side, but has previously said some of Lula's campaign ads were mistakenly deactivated because of technical errors that were not isolated to Brazil. Lula's campaign has also alleged inconsistencies in WhatsApp's artificial intelligence tool, saying Lula-related election content was limited while Bolsonaro-related content was not.

On Thursday, a judge of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) had ordered Meta to apply the same rules to both candidates through the runoff, with a potential daily fine of 500,000 reals ($100,000) for noncompliance. Monday's ruling said Meta had failed to demonstrate compliance with that order and doubled the penalty to one million reals ($200,000) per day — yaani about US$200,000 (roughly two lakh dollars) for every day of noncompliance — according to a court document seen by AFP. "The continued noncompliance, just a few days before the runoff election, demonstrates that the fine imposed was insufficient," the ruling said.

Reporting based on the court's earlier orders and on internal Meta messages obtained by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo said employees had noted Lula's accounts being limited while Bolsonaro's profile appeared in recommendations — but those records do not, on their own, prove a deliberate company instruction to favour one side, and the TSE judge has said there is no established proof of deliberate manipulation. The court's demand includes explanations of Meta's recommendation algorithms, ad-review procedures and the steps taken against inauthentic accounts, as well as assurances that its AI tools apply the same rules to both campaigns.

The stakes are high because the race is close: 45-year-old Flavio Bolsonaro, son of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, secured a first-round lead over Lula earlier this month, and polls predict a tight battle in the runoff on October 25. Lula turns 81 next week. The case has become a test of how far an election court can go in forcing a global platform to open up its algorithms in the final days of a campaign.

Sources: AFP reporting via France 24 / The Voice (TSE ruling of Monday, court document seen by AFP); Particle News summary of the TSE orders and Folha de S.Paulo's reporting on internal Meta messages.