roenxi2 hours ago
It is somewhat confusing to me that more countries don't treat Meta as a political threat. China's approach to restricting access to western internet companies looks more and more reasonable in hindsight. The US tech giants appear to be politically active and becoming more and more willing to influence elections. I don't like the strategic situation of any anti-US political parties with Facebook in the mix (not a comment on Lula, about whos policies I know little).
That being said, it is a complex issue. There are countries that refuse to embrace US style free speech and so there is a natural pressure to move political speech to US-controlled media platforms as a result. The average quality of the chatter is higher.
piva007 minutes ago
Have you read "Careless People"?
If you did (or do read at some point) the final 10-15 chapters detail exactly why Facebook/Meta should be treated as a threat.
gib444an hour ago
> It is somewhat confusing to me that more countries don't treat Meta as a political threat
Lobbying and bribes aren't confusing
ceroxylon2 hours ago
There is a lot of money involved in getting Bolsonaro back in power:
> Brazil’s government announced Friday that annual deforestation in the Amazon fell to its lowest level since records began in 1988 [. . .] During Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency, from 2019 to 2022, Amazon deforestation surged by about 60% [0]
This highlights the greatest difference between these two candidates (imo), one wants to preserve the 'lungs of the Earth', the other wants to rip them out for profit and give the world a middle finger on their way out.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/brazil-amazon-deforestation-lula-...
privacyishuman2 hours ago
Well that sucks then: https://polymarket.com/event/brazil-presidential-election
80% chance Bolsonaro wins.
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
https://globalelectionsimulator.com/brazil/
Bolsonaro 52.26%
Lula 47.74%
somenameformean hour ago
FWIW, these two datums aren't mutually exclusive.
If you have a high enough degree of certainty somebody could have a 99% chance of winning with an expected 50.1%/49.9% split. For the split to mean anything you need to know the confidence/variance.
krystalgamer2 hours ago
brazilians are extremely poor, even with the programmes that try to masquerade the numbers.
why would they care about the amazon if they barely have any money?
climate pov is a first world luxury. no one serious about this election would even attempt to make.
nextaccountican hour ago
Because the rain in most of Brazil depend on the Amazon. If the forest is gone, we will have desertification in the most populous regions of Brazil. The southeast is already facing droughts periodically, and it will get worse with more deforestation. With less rain we will produce less food, which means not only that food will become more expensive in Brazil (and a lot of people will face hunger), but we also depend on the agricultural output to avoid a trade deficit. Less rain means less food exports which means less dollars getting into Brazil, which will, among other things, turn Brazil into a hotter Argentine.
https://piaui.uol.com.br/web/six-conclusions-about-model-of-...
No seriously. There's a flying river, kilometers high in the sky, that goes from the Amazon to various Brazilian regions. It transports more water than the Amazon river itself (which is already the river with the highest discharge of the world). The water source is transpiration from Amazonian trees. Without the trees, the flying river is gone
matheusmoreiraan hour ago
> Less rain means less food exports which means less dollars getting into Brazil
Why not industrialize instead of exporting soy and meat until the end of time?
nextaccountic15 minutes ago
I'm all for industrializing Brazil, I'm not defending the current economic model. I'm just describing the Brazilian economy the way it is.
Also, it's not really possible to industrialize the country by destroying the Amazon. There is no button that turns the forest into a top tier semiconductor industry or anything like that, that's pure fantasy. And the people destroying the forest now is doing this to raise cattle to export meat, exactly the thing you are criticizing.
The only thing that destroying the forest will accomplish is to make Brazil inhospitable, desertified, unable to support its huge population. That's not climate nonsense like you say in another comment.
matheusmoreira6 minutes ago
> Also, it's not really possible to industrialize the country by destroying the Amazon.
Flávio Bolsonaro proposed the creation of railways in the Brazilian north and northeast. These efforts are always paralyzed by leftist environmental NGOs, and leftist parties like PSOL have taken these environmental battles all the way up to the supreme court.
So, do you support Bolsonaro's proposal?
Are you prepared to sacrifice the climate for national development?
This is what this comes down to.
californicalan hour ago
Why not both?
matheusmoreiraan hour ago
Sure. Industrialization comes first though. We can care about jungles if we ever reach superpower status.
This climate nonsense is a tax on developing nations. We're sacrificing for the planet, meanwhile the US puts a couple centuries of distance between us.
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
If I had a button that would burn that entire jungle down and replace it with a top tier national semiconductor industry, I'd press it twice.
Only university leftists care about the Amazon to the point they sacrifice national interests for it. Completely disconnected from reality.
> Europe is not worried about the trees in the Amazon, they want the subsoil.
Dr. Enéas Carneiro.
It's all about the rare earths.
alpineman42 minutes ago
You need to go for a walk in nature. There’s more to life than semi-conductors. Sad!
matheusmoreira39 minutes ago
Wanna trade?
Transfer all your technology to us. We'll give you the Amazon.
dachrisan hour ago
Seems like a false dichotomy, don't see how sacrificing jungle would get Brazil a top-tier semiconductor industry.
And I guess the native peoples living in the Amazon are not university leftists.
I'm not into Brazilian politics, the little I know seems to indicate that it's a choice between a rock and a hard place (both seem to have corruption allegations). The objective aspect I can judge is whom Trump strongly supports. US influence in South America is a pretty bloody chapter in history.
matheusmoreiraan hour ago
> don't see how sacrificing jungle would get Brazil a top-tier semiconductor industry.
It wouldn't. It was just a rhetorical device to express the fact I care far more about national industrial and economic development than some jungle.
> US influence in South America is a pretty bloody chapter in history.
I agree, but Lula's no paragon here. He's had ~20 years to undo the neoliberal privatization policies enacted as of the Washington Consensus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Consensus
Instead of actually reindustrializing Brazil, he anesthetized the population with handouts and lined his pockets. Meanwhile, banks are literally raking in record profits.
nidnoggop6 hours ago
It’s sad but it’s real and it’s happening. In Brazilian news, this is actively being exploded upon and it is not reaching mainstream media properly.
[1] - https://www.instagram.com/reel/De2BfVRD30o
[2] - https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/10/16/meta-employees-...
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
I wouldn't attribute an eventual Lula defeat to this, however.
His 3rd term was terrible, dozens of new taxes were implemented, living costs rose, purchasing power declined, and it became obvious that he was governing through the supreme court. His campaign was overconfident and taken completely off guard when they got utterly eviscerated in the 1st round of elections earlier this month. Left wing desperation was palpable.
Partidarian judges and journalists did everything they could to help Lula, but after the presidential debates on live television, it's pretty much over. There's just no way this guy is even fit to lead the nation ever again.
saulapremium2 hours ago
Funny, that sounds exactly like what an American right-winger would say about Biden in 2024.
I guess Brazil is about to experience a shit-show similar to what the US is going through now, then. Not much hope left anywhere.
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
Lula went on national television and said he's going to end police in reply to Bolsonaro vowing to classify the drug traffickers as narcoterrorists.
It's not even a lie. These leftists do want to abolish the police and create a bolivarian national guard or whatever.
He said this despite the fact organized drug gangs have been known to wage literal drone warfare in Rio de Janeiro. I'm not even kidding.
https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/nacional/sudeste/rj/operacao-no...
I seriously doubt he's going to recover from this.
saulapremiuman hour ago
>Lula went on national television and said he's going to end police in reply to Bolsonaro vowing to classify the drug traffickers as narcoterrorists.
Without knowing much about Brazilian politics, all I can say is that I strongly doubt this. And at least a quick Google AI question suggests that your statement is not just off but completely false.
bel8an hour ago
You can doubt all you want. It's on the record. It was said in national television.
matheusmoreiraan hour ago
He literally said those words. I heard them. Whole nation heard them. I saved a video of it.
Most charitable interpretation possible is he's too senile and doesn't know what he's saying anymore. Not a good look either way.
He also closed the 1st presidential debate by saying that if he won, Brazil would end. Just another one of those moments.
nidnoggopan hour ago
You and everyone else who's seen them know: these presidential debates are a JOKE. Just straight up biased towards high impact cuts for people zoned out of their minds on echo chambered social feeds
matheusmoreiraan hour ago
I know. Doesn't change the fact he said it and went viral on social media two days before the election. Whatever it is he was trying and failing to say, I seriously doubt he's going to recover from the attempt.
I wouldn't put much stock into the "fact checking" newspapers that AIs are sourcing truth from either. Those are all known to be biased towards him. They'll do everything in their power to paint him in a favorable light.
saulapremiuman hour ago
[dead]
ieatcandlewaxan hour ago
When I did a quick search in brave it agreed with the statement: "Yes, during a televised debate on October 23, 2026, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated that his government would "end the police" if reelected. The comment occurred while he was discussing the approval of the PEC da Segurança (Security Public Amendment) and the creation of a new Ministry of Public Security. "
I tried google and he did in fact say it: "During the TV Globo presidential debate on October 23, 2026, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated: "Aprovada a PEC da Segurança eu vou criar o Ministério e ai você vai ver o que é um governo acabar, sabe, com a polícia e deixar o território livre""
Although google says that he might have been being sarcastic, and gave some additional defenses. I googled "Did Lula say he was going to end police recently?" and got these responses.
Im surprised that you got such a different result in such a short time frame, especially the "completely false" thing, as it's not far off the direct quote. What did you google?
lastdong23 minutes ago
I did a quick search and found it was a gaffe that was corrected in the debate afterwards. The video section was isolated/clipped and spread on TikTok, etc.
Surely there must be an official fact-checking website for the election.
matheusmoreira15 minutes ago
Brazilian leftists in general do have a history of radical opposition to the military police. Some radical left parties propose abolishing it outright. "The military police has got to end" is even a line in at least one leftist movie, uttered by a "fascist" police officer no less. It's definitely an idea in the memespace of the Brazilian left.
So in my opinion this "gaffe" is just him revealing his true colors in public. Like when someone gets drunk and starts saying what they're really thinking.
There were numerous fact checking services, none of them particularly trustworthy. The "official" fact checking came from Globo, which hosted the debate. They're known to be biased towards him. They literally helped him out during the debate when he started screwing up his time management.
I had Astra perform a thorough fact checking on both debates, and the fact checking of Globo and other major newspapers. It found a certain degree of favoritism towards Lula.
khriss30 minutes ago
Given all the egregious things Trump has said on national TV and had the MAGA folks contort themselves into knots trying to explain and justify what he said, It's hardly the political death sentence that it used to be.
matheusmoreira24 minutes ago
I don't doubt it. His fans will vote for him no matter what he says or what he does. He literally got a call from Epstein while in jail and nobody cares.
Anything could happen in the next few hours... Just saying that it doesn't look good for him.
lastdong33 minutes ago
[flagged]
goshx4 hours ago
At the same time, some candidates from the opposition are getting more views than Beyoncé and other artists known globally.
https://sleepinggiantsbrasil.com/biblioteca/visualizacoes-de... (portuguese)
Terr_4 hours ago
To save others a couple clicks:
> [Auto-Translated] The Sleeping Giants Brazil report analyzes 300 Reels of 30 Instagram profiles to investigate evidence of algorithmic favoring to federal deputy Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG). Its ten videos totaled 410.5 million views, nearly three times the total of the 90 videos of the other nine MPs analyzed. In views by follower, its performance was 17.2 times the typical value of these deputies, 29.3 times that of the largest Brazilian profiles and 33.7 times that of the largest profiles in the world. His average viewing was behind only Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, surpassing celebrities such as Selena Gomez, Beyoncé and Justin Bieber. The study documents a persistent disparity that requires more transparency from the Meta, although public data does not allow it to determine its causes.
nidnoggop4 hours ago
Both sides are pulling record levels of engagement. It's a colosseum out there. But yes, one of the sides is more automated as usual. Most of the left engagement is human driven.
Jensson3 hours ago
Looks at least partially organic to me, the guy is very cute and looking at his youtube video it is full of female commenters and has 2.7m subscribers.
So he is a celebrity and not just a politician, probably a lot of women are in love with him.
[deleted]3 hours agocollapsed
msandford4 hours ago
At a certain point the big social media companies are going to have to publish their algorithms and/or let you choose your own re: friends updates, friends of friends, things your friends or friends of friends liked, etc. Make your algorithm too opaque and you run the risk of outrage engagement showing up as "the platform pushed this" whatwver that happens to be.
_ink_an hour ago
I would go further and make them liable for what they show. Sure it's user created content. But the feed is entirely curated by them. They decide what to show and what not and they should be liable as such.
thoughtpeddleran hour ago
The US government is not a fan of other sovereign nations (even Western-aligned ones) from gaining "algorithmic sovereignty", as was seen when Australia tried to do so recently and received a stern threat from the US State Department.
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
X did publish their algorithms.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49310291
They set the standard in transparency.
Vaushite3 hours ago
I don't think anything will force them to do this. Can you elaborate on why you think they'll be forced to do this?
jimbob4537 minutes ago
I suspect this has been part of 4chan’s lasting appeal: a dead simple algorithm that can be independently verified via timestamps.
verdverm2 hours ago
Algorithms are something we should definitely regulate, as a generalization of social media and Ai decisions over human lives.
I'd like to see something like ATProtocol feeds forced upon these companies, anyone can create any kind of feed, it works in all clients.
Kapura4 hours ago
meta employees will look at this and think that their job isn't political. what a j o k e.
N_Lensan hour ago
More people should be aware of the Buddhist precept of “right livelihood”.
[deleted]an hour agocollapsed
nidnoggop2 hours ago
If anything, many in Brazil feel a social media decline or stagnation. Orkut was poised to restart here and was met with great anticipation. Good market to new novel social media ideas.
Somehow something like Baidu web doesn’t seem too bad now. Brazil could use some sovereign tech.
dastardly45an hour ago
The American propaganda platforms (especially Meta and X) have been weaponised to interfere in foreign elections for a long time. Brazil is just the latest example from South America. It is also happening in Europe. It is a stated goal of the Trump regime to change European governments which are not aligned with Trumpism. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/12/donald...
Gualdrapo37 minutes ago
I do believe the US interference in flipping most of latin america to the right the last few years reached levels we haven't seen in decades and the magnitude of the machinery behind that is something we have never seen before. Trump surely got quite a few puppet governments with the likes of Milei, Noboa, here with the incredibly corrupt de la espriella and now Brazil in the verge to have another Bolsonaro.
SwellJoe2 hours ago
"Any suggestion that Meta favors one side is false"
Weird how it keeps happening (e.g. just last week, Instagram and the No Kings account), and it's always to the benefit of right-wing extremists. I'm sure it's just an accident, though, surely they wouldn't lie on the internet.
microtonal43 minutes ago
They also repeatedly suspended Dutch LGBTQIA+ accounts:
https://nltimes.nl/2026/04/23/meta-suspends-dozens-dutch-lgb...
It's time countries started suspending Facebook/Instagram for meddling in national affairs.
gnabgib6 hours ago
Title: Meta employees say Lula’s accounts restricted in Brazil election: Report
> don't editorialize.
nidnoggop4 hours ago
Apologies! Fixed the title now
[deleted]2 hours agocollapsed
silverFork5 hours ago
Did you expect more from FaceBook?
moribvndvs4 hours ago
It’s just a technical issue that seems to magically and repeatedly happen in favor of right wing interests. Crazy how that just works out some times.
EdwardDiego3 hours ago
Whoopsie! A slight technical error that aligns with the politics of the White House, it's wild how that happens from time to time to time to time...
Vaushite3 hours ago
It's not the white house, it is always the right wing. When the white house is left wing Facebook is still right wing.
N_Lensan hour ago
Because capital is right wing and capital will act to preserve and concentrate power.
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
The Brazilian left has done much worse than whatever it is that Meta is doing.
> We have defeated Bolsonarism!
Luís Roberto Barroso, former Brazilian Supreme Court Justice.
derektank3 hours ago
Facebook has also made content decisions that have hurt right wing interests in the past, such as in 2020 when they banned several accounts affiliated with Bolsonaro
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/facebook-suspends-disi...
ChrisArchitect5 hours ago
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50122713
barbazoo3 hours ago
I only use FB occasionally for marketplace with an empty account. All that it's ever suggesting in the home feed is hateful, right-wing content. Never anything positive. It's so sad that that's what drives the metrics these people care about. If this is your job, shame on you!
platevoltage4 hours ago
I hope to see Mark dragged in front of congress every day of his life next year.
mindslightan hour ago
No, the last thing US Democrats need is to squander their time on endless questioning.
Some of that is going to be inevitable for impeachment and conviction of course, which are most certainly necessary for traitor Grump and his Supreme Council justifiers as well.
But as for this issue? Strike the root, don't get bogged down in endless bickering about how power was probably abused. Rather, put an end to the capabilities being available to abuse to begin with. Imagine a US GDPR, along with anti-trust legislation/enforcement that un-ties Faceboot-the-app from Faceboot-the-hosting-service, mandating open APIs that facilitate vibrant competition in both markets.
oefrha3 hours ago
For flexing muscles and advancing U.S. foreign policy goals abroad? Doubt it.
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
Don't be fooled. Whatever it is that Meta is doing, it's only a fraction of what Lula, his party and his supreme court ministers did to the Brazilian right wing. Censorship was the least of it.
I'm not even denying that it's happening. I'm just saying I don't care.
d--b3 hours ago
Is this a Trump thing?
Like is the motivation to please Trump and ask for stuff/be left alone? Or is Zuckerberg really gone full right wing globally?
rf153 hours ago
No, it's the lawnmower analogy again: Zuckerberg has no political views, he just thinks that Trump will restrict him less/allow him to make more money/is easier to exploit.
nidnoggop2 hours ago
It would absolutely strike me as a Trump thing, yes. We have a habit of mirroring the US, and it shows
Vaushite3 hours ago
Facebook always aligns with the right wing no matter if the white house is left wing or right wing.
matheusmoreira2 hours ago
Possibly. All things point to Bolsonaro's son winning the election today. He's a Trump ally.
If the Brazilian right wins, then it will mean that not a single left wing party has won an election in South America since the end of USAID.
microtonal40 minutes ago
I think it's more that they happen to be aligned. Left-wing parties are more likely to tax and regulate Meta than radical right parties. So it's for their own profit. But Trump is also mostly there for enriching the oligarchy, he often has the same priorities.
quaddoggy3 hours ago
[flagged]
platevoltage3 hours ago
Are you claiming that Al Jazeera fabricated this report?
derektank3 hours ago
*Reuters report. This is a wire story
prajaybasu2 hours ago
[flagged]
tuwtuwtuwtuw2 hours ago
How is it good that companies in the US is interfering with elections in other countries? Seems like a bizarre take.
Are you one of the guys that support the pedophile Trump and believe everything he says to he gospel?
nidnoggopan hour ago
Probably, and as with most of MAGA adjacent electorate, it’s comprised of frequently stubborn brainwashed minds with no way of arguing out of.
matheusmoreiraan hour ago
It's a hollow complaint given the countless abuses of Lula, his party and all the left wingers in the judiciary and media.
Back in 2022, Bolsonaro was barred from even going live on social media while at the Palácio da Alvorada. Lula has no such restrictions and did it multiple times. Even now, we've got judges who have openly declared that they vote for Lula absolving him of the same actions they condemned Bolsonaro for in 2022.
Whatever it is that Meta is doing, it is literally nothing compared to what they did to the Brazilian right wing. Can't say I feel sorry for them. They literally pulled out all the stops, and it's actually going to be cathartic when they lose anyway.
tuwtuwtuwtuwan hour ago
So it's good that Meta is interfering with elections in other countries because it did it in the past? That's a completely bizarre take.
nidnoggopan hour ago
It’s a nut take with Lula pessimism. The left has taken a radical turn to fight back against bot engagement employed by the extreme right.
matheusmoreira33 minutes ago
The Brazilian supreme court usurped all power in 2019 when they launched their "fake news" inquisition. They essentially became the victims, investigators, prosecutors, judges and executioners in a perpetual trial of wildcard crimes against themselves and with jurisdiction covering the whole territory of Brazil. The inquisition is still active as of today.
That is what the "extreme" right is up against.
matheusmoreiraan hour ago
No. It's definitely not good. I'm not saying this is a good thing.
I'm saying that it's hard to feel sorry for them.
RockRobotRock4 hours ago
damned if you do, damned if you don't
gchamonlive2 hours ago
By which frame of comparison do you say they were ever "damned even though they didn't"?