Justice André Mendonça of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court, sitting on the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), ruled on Friday (25) that X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube must take down posts claiming that presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro of the PL party, or his family, intend to strip Nossa Senhora Aparecida, Brazil's patron saint, of her title. The order answered a request filed by the senator himself, nine days before the first round of the presidential election on October 4.

In the decision, Mendonça called the core of the claim "notoriously untrue". The order covers videos, memes, images and audio carrying the same message and requires the immediate removal of 1,170 links identified in the case files, according to CNN Brasil. The justice wrote that "the measure is especially necessary given the proximity of the election, the sensitivity of the issue for a significant portion of the electorate and the high potential for dissemination of the challenged information", a passage of the ruling quoted by Diário do Centro do Mundo.

"For the purposes of this decision, content covered by this order, and therefore barred as notoriously untrue, is that which presents as fact the claim that Flavio Nantes Bolsonaro or his family proposed, orchestrated, supported, is committed to or intends to promote the removal of Nossa Senhora Aparecida from the condition or title of Patroness of Brazil."

Flávio's lawyers told the court that a technical survey found 2,086 posts from 1,674 accounts between early Wednesday (23) and Friday morning, drawing more than 21 million views, about 1.49 million likes and 312,000 shares. The legal team also filed a criminal complaint against profiles that spread the content. "On the eve of a presidential election, what is at stake goes beyond a candidate's honor. This is not a request to protect the complainant. It is a request to protect the voter, whose right is to vote free of informational frauds," the petition says, in a passage cited by CNN Brasil. Case documents reviewed by Diário do Centro do Mundo show that the bill to remove the title at the center of the rumor came from former congressman Victório Galli Filho, years before Flávio entered Congress.

The Tabet post

The case began as a suit by Flávio against comedian Antonio Tabet. On Thursday (24), Tabet wrote on X: "The militia family hates Black women so much that it decided to attack Nossa Senhora Aparecida!" The post did not name the senator and drew more than 195,000 views. Mendonça ordered it deleted and barred republications of the same content, under a 30,000-real fine per violation. Tabet publicly rejected the decision, according to UOL. Federal Deputy William De Lucca called the move censorship on X. Correio Braziliense reported that some of the posts listed in the request do not directly address the patroness.

Limits of the order and next steps

The order spares journalistic coverage, posts that debunk the claim, criticism, satire and political opinion, as long as they do not present the false claim as fact. It applies to X, Meta, ByteDance and Google, the companies behind the platforms named. They have 48 hours to tell the TSE what measures they took and how many posts were removed. CNN Brasil and Congresso em Foco reported a daily fine of 50,000 reais per provider for noncompliance, while Correio Braziliense reported up to 30,000 reais a day.

Mendonça asked for the decision to be reviewed by the TSE's virtual plenary. Flávio, who denies any plan to change the title, has blamed the story on the "PT militia," according to Congresso em Foco. The first round of the election is on October 4.