The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) of Brazil has ordered the suspension of part of the electoral campaign of the far-right candidate Renan Santos, from the Missao party, on Monday, after detecting irregularities in the registration of his social media profiles before the electoral Justice.
The TSE magistrate, Dias Toffoli, has pointed out that both Santos and his candidate for the Vice Presidency, Aroldo Medina, strategically omitted to declare all the social media accounts used in their electoral strategy at the time of officially registering their candidacy.
"The unreported networks benefit from opaque algorithms and evade social and legal control. They disguise themselves as ordinary users, operating on the margins of the legitimate space for debate in the digital environment," he explained, according to the newspaper 'O Globo'.
The judge emphasized that, although the candidates communicated the existence of those profiles 12 days after submitting the registration request, that delay hindered the oversight of electoral propaganda and allowed unassociated accounts to operate officially with the campaign.
With this decision, the disbursement of public resources by the electoral authorities for the campaign of Santos and Medina is suspended, as well as their participation in radio and television debates. However, the resolution does not prevent them from continuing to hold street events, such as distributing flyers and direct contact with voters.