Brazil’s Electoral Justice ordered Meta, X, TikTok and YouTube to remove more than 1,000 posts repeating the false claim that Flávio Bolsonaro would seek to strip Our Lady of Aparecida of her status as Brazil’s patron saint if elected. The decision, issued by Supreme Court Justice André Mendonça while serving on the Superior Electoral Court, followed a request from Bolsonaro’s team.¹

The Brazil Right account presents the episode primarily as a disinformation campaign aimed at influencing voters. It says the allegation originated in a GloboNews comment that was later retracted by the network and denied by Bolsonaro. In the ruling, Mendonça wrote that the narrative had spread through thousands of posts despite public corrections, with an initial subsequent filing identifying “1,301 new publications” after the correction.¹ Bolsonaro’s team argued that the case concerned not merely a candidate’s reputation but voters’ ability to choose “free from informational frauds.”¹

Posts from Bolsonaro-aligned commentators reinforced that interpretation. Allan Dos Santos reposted Flávio Bolsonaro’s statement that the purported initiative “does not even exist,” while accusing opponents of spreading further falsehoods before the election.Allan Dos Santos (allanconta5)² Rodrigo Constantino, meanwhile, described hashtags defending Aparecida as surging and said the debate had mixed “faith, elections and political attacks.”Rodrigo Constantino (Rconstantino)³

The Brazil Left coverage supplied little narrative detail but emphasized the mechanics and speed of the intervention, headlining that Mendonça took 65 minutes to review and order the removal of 1,022 links concerning Flávio and Aparecida.⁴ That framing differs from the right’s focus on alleged coordination and the religiously charged nature of the claim, but both accounts underscore how quickly the rumor moved from broadcast commentary to a broad platform-removal order.