Musk removes Brazil from the list of countries where political ads are allowed on X

Brazil is no longer on the list of countries in which billionaire Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) says it allows political ads. At least until last Tuesday (29), the country was still on the list of nations in which “ads with political content” were allowed – it did not just appear on the list of permissions for “political campaign ads”. Now it is no longer included in either of the two advertising options.

The change on the companies that offer this type of service.

The court gave a deadline of 60 days, counting from the date on which the resolution came into force, which occurred on March 1st. The change in X also comes weeks after Musk’s clash with the minister of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) and president of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes.

The owner of X accused the magistrate of censorship, threatened to disregard court orders in Brazil and ended up becoming the target of investigation in a court inquiry. The company also provided Moraes’ confidential decisions, upon request, and which were disclosed in a report by US congressmen aligned with Donald Trump.

Although Musk has continued with rhetoric of attacks on Moraes and the Lula (PT) government since then, being cited as a “myth of freedom” by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), in official communications to the STF the platform has defended itself against suspicions of non-compliance and claims to respect the legislation.

On Tuesday (29), Folha de S.Paulo sent a question to X to find out whether the platform would continue to allow political/electoral advertisements in Brazil. It also asked whether the company would make a repository of these advertisements available, in what location and from what date.

OX did not respond. He only sent a response, in English, saying he was busy and advising us to get in touch again later, as he has done by default. “Busy now, please check back later”, says the text.

The report looked for X again, after identifying that Brazil had been removed from the list. So far, there has been no response, just the automatic message. Despite the change on the page containing the rules on “Political content”, (political content, in Portuguese), in the “X Ads policy update record” link, the last change published is from February this year.

The circulation of electoral disinformation on the platform.

According to the new TSE resolution, platforms must inform, in the repository, in real time, the content, values, those responsible for payment and characteristics of the population groups that make up the audience (profile) of the contracted advertising. In addition, they must provide a query tool that allows searching by keywords, terms of interest and advertiser names.

It also provides access to precise information about the boost period, the number of people reached and the chosen segmentation criteria. The resolution also establishes that this measure is “permanently enforceable, including in non-election years and pre- and post-election periods.”

Last week, Google announced that it would no longer allow political ads to be broadcast in Brazil via Google Ads, which includes YouTube. The reason was the resolution of the TSE and the costs that would be involved in adapting it.

Until then, Google’s criteria for including ads in its transparency report were the mention of political parties, candidates for positions at the federal and state level or even occupants of these positions. In addition to the fact that this year’s elections will be municipal, the TSE rule provides a broader description of what is considered in the list of political electoral advertisements, including categories such as “government proposals, bills, exercise of the right to vote and other political rights or matters related to the electoral process”.

In the resolution, the court also prohibited companies that sell any type of content promotion from making “this service available for broadcasting a notoriously untrue or seriously decontextualized fact that could affect the integrity of the electoral process.”

Also establishing that, when this type of content has been promoted “irregularly”, the Electoral Court may determine that the platforms broadcast, “by promotion and at no cost”, informative content that elucidates a notoriously untrue fact “in the same way and scope as the hiring”. (RENATA GALF/FOLHAPRESS)

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