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🇧🇷 Brazil /Culture & Society

Omissions like Renan Santos’s and errors in candidate records distort social media reach

From Folha de S.Paulo · () Portuguese

Translated from Portuguese and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Analysis Documents & data Ongoing story
  • Several Brazilian candidates failed to list all campaign social-media accounts or submitted incorrect account addresses when registering their candidacies.
  • Since 2024, Brazil’s electoral rules have required platforms to remove declared candidate profiles from recommendation algorithms, potentially disadvantaging candidates who report their accounts correctly.
  • Candidates or their representatives said some errors had been identified and corrected, while the Superior Electoral Court did not respond to questions about oversight.

Errors in Brazilian candidates’ social-media records are creating an uneven digital playing field, according to a survey by Folha. Some candidates failed to declare accounts they use for campaigning, while others registered addresses different from the profiles they actually operate.

The cases include São Paulo Vice Governor Felício Ramuth, who is seeking re-election, and federal deputy candidates Tabata Amaral and Coronel Tadeu. Other candidates identified with incorrect profile addresses include former Salvador Mayor ACM Neto, who is running for governor of Bahia, Senate candidates André do Prado and Décio Lima, and state legislative candidates Danilo Balas and Pedro Nassif.

The list also includes federal deputy candidates Nikolas Ferreira and André Janones. Folha had previously reported inconsistencies in the social-media declarations of presidential candidates Rui Costa Pimenta, Hertz Dias, Samara Martins and Wilson Grassi. The problems included omitted profiles and a failure to identify the platforms where candidates were active.

The omissions have practical consequences under a rule introduced by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court in 2024. Platforms must exclude candidate profiles declared to electoral authorities from recommendation algorithms. As a result, posts from a declared account cannot be shown to people who do not already follow it. Candidates who fail to report accounts may therefore avoid those filters, while candidates who comply can lose some reach.

Ramuth’s campaign said its legal team had identified the failure to declare his Instagram, TikTok and X accounts. Some other candidates requested updates after Folha contacted them, while others said they had already sought corrections that had not yet advanced through the electoral system. The court did not answer questions about whether it checks candidates’ social-media information.

The legal team responsible for completing the candidacy registration has already identified the error.

— Felício Ramuth’s campaignThe campaign responded to the omission of Ramuth’s social-media accounts from his electoral registration.
About this summary

Originally published by Folha de S.Paulo in Portuguese. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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