US social media company Meta has said it will stop all advertisement about politics, elections and social issues on its platforms in the EU as of October, due to the incoming legislation on political advertising.
Meta – which owns Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Whatsapp – said in a statement that the EU’s Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising regulation (TTPA) “introduces significant operational challenges and legal uncertainties” and “unworkable requirements”.
The EU’s TTPA – aimed at countering information manipulation and foreign interference in elections – entered into force in April 2024, but most of the provisions will become fully applicable on 10 October this year.
Under the rules, political ads must carry a transparency label and clearly identify key information such as sponsors, the election to which they are linked, the amounts paid and targeting techniques.
Legal uncertainty
Meta said that it's had tools in place since 2018 that provide transparency for ads about politics and elections. They required advertisers to complete an authorisation process, and Meta stored this data in its publicly available ad library. However, the new TTPA obligations “create an untenable level of complexity and legal uncertainty for advertisers and platforms operating in the EU,” the company said.
It added that because of the restrictions, “people will be seeing less relevant ads on our platforms.”
Meta said people or candidates in the EU can still post and debate politics on its platforms.
The tech giant’s announcement comes after Google said in November last year it would also ban political ads due to the incoming rules.
The changes only apply to Europe.
DSA probes
The European Commission has introduced several initiatives to counter foreign interference and disinformation in elections. It began, for example, several probes under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which obliges online platforms to address illegal content, related to disinformation.
Meta’s Facebook and Instagram were hit with formal proceedings in April 2024 on suspected infringements related to their policies and practices on deceptive advertising and political content on its services. The investigation is still ongoing.
Several EU elections have been targeted by disinformation. On 6 December, Romania became the first EU country to cancel an election over foreign interference, following reports about information manipulation on video-sharing app TikTok.
