It’s published
US social media company Meta has said that it will halt all advertising on political, elections and social issues on EU platforms as of October due to political advertising laws.
Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook, Threads and WhatsApp, said in a statement that Transparency and Targeting (TTPA) in the EU’s Political Advertising Regulation (TTPA) “introduces important operational challenges and legal uncertainties” and “introduces non-operating requirements.”
The EU’s TTPA aims to combat information manipulation and foreign interference in elections, but although it came into effect in April 2024, most regulations will now be fully applied on October 10th this year.
Under the rules, political ads should have a transparency label and clearly identify important information such as sponsors, linked elections, payments, targeting techniques, and more.
Legal Uncertainty
Meta said the tools have been in place since 2018 to provide transparency in politics and election ads. They asked advertisers to complete the approval process, and Meta saved this data in a publicly available ad library. However, the new TTPA obligations “create an unacceptable level of complexity and legal uncertainty for advertisers and platforms operating in the EU,” the company said.
Due to the restrictions, he added, “people are seeing ads that are less relevant to our platform.”
Meta said that EU people or candidates can still post and discuss politics on that platform.
The Tech Giant announcement comes after Google said last November that it would ban political ads for the next rule.
The changes apply to Europe only.
DSA Probe
The European Commission has introduced several initiatives to combat foreign interference and disinformation in elections. For example, several probes have begun under the Digital Services Act (DSA). This requires online platforms to address illegal content related to disinformation.
Meta’s Facebook and Instagram were struck by a formal lawsuit in April 2024 over alleged infringement in connection with policies and practices regarding deceptive advertising and its services. The investigation is still underway.
Several EU elections have been targeted by disinformation. On December 6th, Romania became the first EU country to cancel an election over foreign interference following reports of information manipulation on video sharing app Tiktok.