Miguel A. Lopes / EPA
André Ventura (Enough)
Party fined R$30,000 for publishing research without legal notice in the 2025 legislature. The research was from a platform that allows you to automate participation in research through bots.
Chega will have to pay a fine of 30 thousand euros for having released, during the campaign for the 2025 legislative elections, an online survey on voting intentions without including the mandatory legal warning that the results did not allow scientific generalizations.
The decision was taken by the Regulatory Entity for Social Communication (ERC) which, according to , considered that the party violated the research law by publishing, on Chega and its leader, André Ventura’s social networks, results of a survey by the platform PollFm presented as an electoral trend.
At issue is a publication made on May 16, 2025 on Facebook, Instagram and Folha Nacional, which is still online. The graphic released was entitled “Chega wins in practically all online polls for the 18th” and showed the party ahead, with 44.6% of voting intentions, followed by AD, with 31.7%, and the PS, with 11.82%.
According to the ERC, although the content was not scientific research, it fell within the law as it was an opinion survey related to voting intentions in legislative elections. Therefore, their public release required the inclusion of the caveat that the results represented only the opinions of those interviewed and could not be generalized to the electorate.
Chega claimed that it was not the author of the research and that it limited itself to sharing content produced by third parties. The regulator rejected this argument, highlighting that the law also affects whoever publishes or disseminates the results, regardless of having produced them.
In the deliberation, released on June 12, the ERC states that the “authorship of the investigation” is irrelevant for liability purposes and that the legal obligation falls on “those responsible for the publication or public dissemination of the results”.
The regulatory body also discarded the thesis that PollFm would only be of a recreational nature. For ERC, the results were presented as electoral indicators and disseminated in a campaign context, through channels with great reach capacity.
The regulator points out that Chega had 338 thousand followers on Instagram and 428 thousand on Facebook, while André Ventura had 903 thousand followers on Instagram. In the ERC’s assessment, this diffusion universe reinforced the potential impact of the publication.
The deliberation also draws attention to the characteristics of PollFm, describing it as a platform that allows you to automate participation in surveys through botswhich raises doubts about the legitimacy of the results presented.
Chega also challenged the ERC’s competence to intervene in the case, arguing that its action would be limited to traditional media. The regulator rejected this interpretation, noting that it has the authority to ensure the rigor and impartiality of surveys and opinion polls, including when they are disseminated in digital media.
Initially, two fines in installments of R$25,000 were imposed, one for each publication, later accumulated into a single fine of R$30,000. The value is close to the expected legal minimum, which starts at R$24,939.89 and can reach R$249,398.95.
The ERC concluded that Chega acted intentionally, knowing that the dissemination of surveys and opinion polls is subject to formal requirements.
The decision can still be challenged in court.
