Online Media in Brazilian Elections
By: Laura Platz
Oct 23, 2026
Since 2018, digital platforms have served as the central battleground for political mobilization in Brazilian elections. This week’s graph looks at developments in digital campaigning, disinformation, and state regulation of online content.
For the indicators on government regulatory capacity (scale 0-4) and party/candidate use of social media (scale 0-3), higher values reflect greater capacity or frequency. Party dissemination of false information uses an inverted scale (0-4), where lower values indicate more frequent disinformation.
The adoption of social media by parties and candidates rises from low levels in the early 2000s to substantial use by 2018, and has since plateaued at the maximum score.
At the same time, domestic political disinformation became more frequent, at its worst during Jair Bolsonaro’s term in office. While major parties disseminated false information on most key political issues in 2022, by 2025 party-led disinformation was reduced to some key issues, but not others.
The Brazilian government has slowly increased its capacity to regulate online content, though not enough to regulate all content and portions of the law by 2025. Regulatory gaps are visible amid emerging AI and BigTech oversight. Legal grey zones around AI-generated campaign avatars and deepfakes prompted authorities to ban synthetic media and AI-recommendation of candidates in March 2026.
Questions about platform neutrality arose amid failures to flag disinformation ads and allegations of algorithmic bias against Meta. However, tighter regulation has heightened disputes with BigTech lobbyists, who accuse the government of censorship rather than regulating fake news.
As social media transforms electoral campaigning, it brings unprecedented legal and societal hurdles. It remains to be seen how Brazil’s struggles with disinformation and platform regulation will impact the 2026 election results.
Note: The current V-Dem dataset v16 contains data for up until the end of 2025. It does not cover developments in 2026.
