The president of the (Superior Electoral Court), canceled the application of a fine that could reach R$600 thousand and that had been determined by her predecessor in office, the minister, against the owner of a profile on X (old) for publishing disinformation. According to the minister, the charge was undue.
A and was removed by the minister in a decision published in June 2025, following a request from Rita de Cássia Serrão.
In November 2022, amid movements to contest the results of the presidential elections that culminated on January 8, Moraes suspended her profile, along with other accounts, for posts framed as disinformation against the integrity of the electoral process.
Weeks later, in January, the minister ordered the reactivation of the profiles and, at the same time, predicted a daily fine of R$20,000 if the conduct was repeated. However, it did not order the case to be kept confidential, nor did it notify users about the imposition of this fine. The orders until then had only been directed to social media.
Months after that, in June 2023, after monitoring by (AEED), the minister stated that there had been “clear non-compliance” with the previously imposed measure, imposed a daily fine for a period corresponding to almost a month and only then ordered the users to be summoned.
When analyzing Rita’s request later, when she had already been notified, Minister Cármen Lúcia decided to waive the fine, the same position defended by the Public Electoral Ministry.
“In the absence of the notification of the decision that determined the imposition of a fine in the case of reiteration of content already blocked in the records and unidentified publications containing disinformation or condoning acts that violate the democratic rule of law, the collection of a fine established in the decision is undue”, wrote the minister.
The minister also stated that, according to the AEDD, in analyzing a random sample of Rita’s publications from the date on which the fine began to be charged, “no disinformative content was identified with open support for anti-democratic acts”.
The case had its final judgment published in February this year. In December 2023, the Sheet had revealed the collection of fines by Moraes without there having been any notification of the recipients of the previous orders. Rita’s summons, as stated in a statement from the Public Ministry, took place on the 6th of that month, a few days after publication.
When contacted by the reporter at the time, the TSE had informed via communications that it was still in the process of locating Rita and Wagner (owner of another profile subject to the fine). He did not explain, however, why there was no notice of the January decision.
This is one of the few processes in the 2022 elections in which the TSE acted with its police power to block profiles that can be found in the public consultation of the Electoral Court.
As shown by Sheetin addition to several procedures being confidential, the court does not even provide aggregate data on how it acted based on the resolution approved in that election and which expanded the court’s powers against disinformation.
A portion of the , from a US Congressional committee. In a survey carried out by Sheetof 25 TSE processes mentioned in the document, only 3 are public.
In addition to the issue of the lack of subpoena, the process in question also raised debate, among experts consulted by the Sheet at the time, regarding the actions of the Electoral Court outside the electoral period.
In the TSE report that supported the fine, there was a post by Rita from May 2023, with 61 views, in which she said: “The purest truth, which makes us certain that they did not win the election but rather took power”, along with a post from a columnist who said that Lula’s popularity could not be compared to Bolsonaro’s.
Based on the document, Moraes stated that Rita and Wagner Pereira’s profile were recalcitrant “in the propagation of disinformation against people, in open support for undemocratic acts” and in disagreement with his previous decision in January.
