Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) fined Facebook parent Meta about $1.3 million (£980,000) for failing to fully comply with court orders amid last month’s run-off presidential election, in which it was accused of bias.

But the court said it found no evidence of any “deliberate action to skew the election“, according to reporting judge Marco Aurelio Bellizze.

The court said the fines reflected missed deadlines and a lack of transparency in its investigation.

“The records contain technical failures acknowledged by Facebook itself, but there are no elements allowing us to conclude, on a preliminary basis, that there was deliberate action to skew the election,” Bellizze wrote in the ruling.

“That conclusion would require robust evidence, to be produced through the appropriate legal proceedings,” he added.

The sum equates to three daily fines of 500,000 reais (£67,460) per day from 17 to 19 October and six daily fines of 1 million reais per day from 20 to 25 October, the day of the run-off election.

Meta said it complies with Brazilian law and would defend itself in ongoing legal proceedings.

Election campaign

The company denied the accusations against it, but admitted that some of Lula’s campaign ads had been mistakenly deactivated due to technical errors.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was unexpectedly re-elected on 25 October after coming in second in the first round of voting, after he mobilised a huge social media campaign.

“We had to overcome foreign interference in the election, coming from outside through digital platforms that we will have to regulate,” Lula da Silva said in his victory speech.