During the 2026 election campaign, at least 1,069 advertisements mentioning incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or opponent Flávio Bolsonaro on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads were paid for in U.S. dollars. Data from Meta’s Ad Library analyzed by Agência Pública reveals that the ads cost at least $120,800.

The ads circulated without the political content label, which Meta’s rules require, between August 16 and September 30. After that, they were removed for violating platform policies. However, prior to removal, they had already garnered over 82 million impressions (the number of times an ad appears on a screen).

The political label mandates greater transparency regarding advertisers. If ads are not labeled as political, pages are not required to disclose who paid for them or the target audience for the content.

Some advertisers disclosed to Meta that the ads were paid for using a U.S.-based payment platform called pagolink.global, which is not available in Brazil. The company is headquartered in Delaware, a state that does not require the public disclosure of owners or stockholders.