Big Tech’s Invisible Hand: Bolsonaro’s secret Facebook meeting

Jair Bolsonaro, April 2, 2025 in the afternoon, tension could be palpated. It was very important that the meeting did not participate in the news for Meta’s leadership in Brazil. After all, former President Bolsonaro was a defendant to try a blow with the help of the army (a decision Expected this week) And a friendly meeting sends the wrong message.

However, the mood was rapidly broken by the impulse of a care worker who cut off the crowd to hug the former president. Two Federal Police Officers jumped the rest of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party President Valdemar Costa Neto and Bolsonaro. On that day, there are even protocols to take the existing and existing heads of state.

Bolsonaro took advantage of a more comfortable atmosphere to present Meta’s Senior Public Policy Director Murillo Larajeira in Brazil, and the medal he gave to allies such as the Silver Medal carved with his face – Argentina President Javier Milei.

The group locked themselves in the meeting room. There were other lobbyists sitting next to Laranjeira: Kaliana Kalacha, Marconi Machado, Mário César Vilhena, Lilian Estevanato, side Dumaresq and André Atadeu.

Laranjeira directed the speech, introduced the team and thanked Bolsonaro for the party’s PL’s PL’s 1st Communication Summit, designed By Michelle Rodrigues. Laranjeira also acknowledged that the party was best structured in terms of communication.

Beyond his “uncle at a family meeting” attitude, Bolsonaro’s breathless speech touched Facebook’s leadership like tears in his eyes when he spoke about a possible imprisonment. “If I get arrested, I won’t take it for two days,” he said.

After this emotional moment, Meta’s rulers were attacked. They discussed the invoices that disturbed them and explained why the regulations would harm their interests and also the operation of the Internet in Brazil. Among these, there was Bill 2630, known as the “Fake News Law olan, which proposed an accountability and transparency regime and other invoices related to artificial intelligence for social media.

The visit had to be kept away from the spotlight, but had to sign a Privacy Agreement-Merkes-Meta’s high authorities. Therefore, it was a corporate decision. He crowned an alliance that could not be considered only two years ago. Until the beginning of 2023, technology companies were suspected by MPs, most of them aligned with Bolsonaro.

“Our first meetings with Big Tech was to demand that our pages were restored to the rest of our pages, S says PL leader in House, Sóstenes Cavalcante, in an interview Agência pública.

“The relationship developed after Bill 2630. It was the DNA who wanted to censor them, who willingly and who did not want to harm them commercially,” he explains. “Before that, we saw them as our enemies. We always had problems with Big Tech because we always thought that Big Tech always benefited to the left.”

Bill was accepted by the Senate in 2630, 2020. The bill was replaced by a working group between July and December 2021 in the House of Representatives, but the most advanced version was ultimately from the agenda of fate on May 2, 2023.

For Big Teh, third -party content obligation, nationalization of advertising contracts, the joint responsibility of advertising providers for misleading advertising, the production of transparency reports and the use of journalism content proposed unacceptable interventions.

Cavalcante, these days, “when there is an invoice to harm every interest, they come here,” he says.

Since then, many meetings have been held in his office with technology lobbyists. “I bought them every time they ask. I often meet them. I think I should have at least 10 meetings with them.”

Two years before Donald Trump’s compliance with the far -right government, large technology executives, especially Google and Meta, were applying the formula they used to avoid regulation later in Brazil. They adopted extreme right politicians with radical conversations that were punished or suspended from their platforms for violating security policies.

“The political ranking process of the last decade of the last decade of Brazil with Bill 2630, Bill 2630, helped to produce this iconic photograph of the opening of Trump. “There was a ranking of the political position of the conservative area, and this field had an approach that produces a alignment by the great technology.”

During this rapprochement process, Big Tech lobbillers used a full lobby strategy menu that would be refined and adopted in other anti-reinforcing wars in Brazil and other countries. They made hundreds of visits to representatives and senators, introduced and financed activities, happy hours and breakfast, heavy weights such as former president Michel TEMER, and a stratagem – and even a stratagem, known as “Astroturfing ,, made a stratagem that could be supported by companies.

This is an excerpt from an investigation carried out Agência pública As part of the “invisible hand of Big Tech” special report, a transnational partnership Pública and clip – Centro Latinoamericano de periodismo de Resportación, which brings together 17 media organizations working in 13 countries. Read the entire story Here.

Big Tech’s invisible hand A collaborative journalism investigation directed by the Brazilian news organization Agência pública And Centro Latinoamericano de researcher periodística (clip)With Cikey (Australia), CUESTİóN PúBlica (Colombia), Daily Maverick (South Africa), Al -diario ar (Argentina), Alti (Paraguay), Facultum (El Salvador), ICL (Brazil), Researcher Journalism Foundation – IJF (Canada), Lab (Chile), Lighthouse reports (International), N+focus (Mexican), Núcleo (Brazil), Premiums (Ecuador), Technology Policy Press (USA) and Tempo (Indonesia). Unlimited reporters And law team Hand Veinte supported the project and La Fábrica Meméicica Designed a visual identity.

Description: News Media as part of the bargaining code, private media (parent company Crirase) He bought meta and Google from the middle of 2021. Meta terminated its agreements with all publishers in 2024. Private media continues to receive funds from Google as part of the code.