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Sep 22, 2026
Bahia Court Takes Down Vorcaro Chat Site but Rejects Wider Blocks
The dispute pits an electoral coalition’s claim that a simulated chat interface could distort voters’ understanding against the developers’ argument that the site merely organized material already made public. The court sided with the coalition on removing the specific content, but stopped short of authorizing wider online blocks.
Bahia’s Regional Electoral Court ordered the removal of MasterWhats, a website that presented messages attributed to businessman Daniel Vorcaro in a WhatsApp-style interface, after an electoral complaint by the Mais Bahia, Mais Brasil coalition, which includes Senate candidate Jaques Wagner of the Workers’ Party.
The coalition argued that the presentation falsely linked Wagner to alleged matters involving Banco Master and that the conversations were not authentic. The court’s rapporteur, Judge Isaías Vinícius de Castro Simões, partially granted an injunction, describing the page as a “deliberate creation of artificial conversations” capable of “misleading the electorate.”1
That finding turned on the site’s format rather than simply the availability of the underlying information. MasterWhats was designed to mimic WhatsApp and let visitors browse more than 65,000 messages by contact, including public officials, according to reports. Its creators maintained that it organized information previously disclosed by the press and Federal Police, rather than creating new factual claims.2
The order instructed NIC.br, the body that coordinates Brazil’s .br domain system, to suspend the specified content. If a targeted removal could not be carried out, it authorized blocking the broader recomendeme.com.br domain. The court also ordered the domain holder to be added to the case and sought connection and access records for further investigation.
The ruling nevertheless imposed limits on the coalition’s request. Citing minimal intervention by electoral authorities and the prohibition on prior censorship, the court rejected proposals for general DNS blocks through Anatel and preventive automated filtering by major platforms such as Google, Meta and Telegram.2
Developers said the broader domain block also disrupted RecomendeMe, an unrelated recommendations platform. Lucas Matheus Alves da Silva said he received no notice before the service became unavailable, writing: “Zero email, zero summons, zero adversarial process.”3 The contrast underscores the court’s narrow legal rationale: it found the simulated political content warranted immediate action, while declining to endorse sweeping restrictions across the internet.