TSE orders removal as Aparecida rumor puts faith at the center of Brazil’s election fight

TSE orders removal as Aparecida rumor puts faith at the center of Brazil’s election fight
Justice André Mendonça, acting on Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE), ordered Meta, X, TikTok and YouTube to remove more than 1,000 posts claiming that Flávio Bolsonaro would seek to revoke Our Lady of Aparecida’s status as Brazil’s patron saint if elected. The court decision said the allegation continued circulating after it had been publicly corrected, citing 1,301 new posts identified after the correction.

The account published by a right-leaning outlet presents the episode primarily as a disinformation campaign targeting Bolsonaro. It says the claim originated in a GloboNews commentator’s remarks and was later denied by the broadcaster and by Bolsonaro himself. “It is a lie that I would have supported any project” to remove Aparecida’s status, Bolsonaro said, adding that he would “never” do so. His team filed a criminal complaint with electoral prosecutors, arguing that voters’ ability to choose freely was at stake.

That interpretation was reinforced by Bolsonaro supporters on X. In a repost of Bolsonaro’s statement, Allan Dos Santos said GloboNews had issued a correction over the alleged “lie” and stressed that the supposed bill “does not even exist.” Commentator Rodrigo Constantino similarly described hashtags about Aparecida as surging while Bolsonaro denied any plan to alter her designation, framing the dispute as a collision of faith, elections and political attacks.

A left-associated outlet’s headline, by contrast, emphasized the mechanics of the ruling: Mendonça took 65 minutes to review and order the removal of 1,022 links concerning Aparecida and Flávio Bolsonaro. Its available material did not set out a competing account of the rumor’s origin or merit.

The common point is that the court treated the claim as false and ordered broad platform action. The contrast lies in emphasis: one account foregrounds alleged coordinated misinformation and its electoral consequences, while the other foregrounds the court’s swift, large-scale intervention.

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