Lula wins in Brazil and puts rules for large platforms first

Brazil re-elected President Lula. In the first vote, Lula was behind by 1.87 percentage points. No candidate in Brazil won after such a first vote before. After the win, Lula told the country that rules for platforms are a first task. Lula told that large platform companies pay no taxes and try to steer the election.

What is new

Lula told that external interference came through digital platforms. These bills wait in Congress:

• AI Legal Framework
• Digital Markets bill against monopoly power
• bills against online misogyny

The numbers

Tatiana Dias co-directs CTRL+Z. CTRL+Z collected more than 1,200 reports of removed content and restricted pages. Meta gives technical failures as the cause of limits on the account of Lula. A Superior Electoral Court told Meta to use the same rules for all candidates. The penalty is R$1 million each day. Lula added more than 10 million votes.

What is not known

Meta gave no answers to nine UN experts or to 13 US lawmakers. The experts want to know if AI systems of Meta put limits on one side. The new Congress can cancel the rule of the Supreme Court about the liability of platforms.

Insight: Lula used WhatsApp to win and now needs Congress

Lula Army was a WhatsApp group with 10 million members, and Meta controls WhatsApp. Most deputies who were on the side of the platforms were re-elected. This seems hard: Lula has the voters, but Congress controls each new rule. Courts can give a decision before new laws. Companies with users in Brazil must prepare for this.