Meta, the parent company of Facebook (*both are banned and designated as extremist in Russia), said it was removing content supporting the protests in Brazil that escalated into riots.
On Sunday, thousands of supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro smashed presidential palace windows, stormed the National Congress building and ransacked rooms in the Supreme Court. The riots lasted several hours.
"We are also designating this as a violating event, which means we will remove content that supports or praises these actions. We are actively following the situation and will continue removing content that violates our policies,"
a Meta spokesman said.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office on Jan. 1 after defeating Bolsonaro in a runoff election in October. Bolsonaro refused to concede defeat and some supporters have claimed the election was stolen, with people taking to social media and messaging platforms from Twitter, Telegram and TikTok to YouTube and Facebook, to organise protests.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was on a working trip all day in São Paulo, during a press conference called the storming of government buildings in Brasilia barbaric, ordered the use of federal forces to restore order in the capital and replaced the local head of public security with the Deputy Minister of Justice.
Countries and international organizations in the Americas spoke out in support of President Lula da Silva, calling the protesters' actions an anti-democratic coup attempt.
