Meta’s announced that it will ban all political, electoral and social issue ads in Europe from October this year, due to incoming regulations around political advertising in the region.
The EU’s Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) provision, which will come into effect on October 10th, will require all digital ad platforms to implement enhanced transparency measures for political ads, including information on how they were targeted, and who funded each ad.
The new rules also stipulate that:
“Data [for political ad targeting] can be used only if the data subject has given explicit and separate consent for their use for political advertising.”
That, among several other provisions, are beyond what Meta believes is workable for its ad delivery systems, so it’s decided to halt all political and issue ads instead.
As per Meta:
“Since 2018, we’ve had tools in place which provide more transparency for ads about politics, elections and social issues than any other platform, on or offline, as well as other extensive safeguards […] Unfortunately, the TTPA introduces significant, additional obligations to our processes and systems that create an untenable level of complexity and legal uncertainty for advertisers and platforms operating in the EU.”
Meta says that the new restrictions on ad targeting, specifically, will limit how political and social issue advertisers can reach their audiences “and lead to people seeing less relevant ads on our platforms.”
“It is yet another threat to the principles of personalized advertising, ignoring the benefits to advertisers and the people they want to reach.”
The requirements add to the ever-complex digital ad environment in the EU region, which have already imposed significant cost and effort on almost every website and app to align with such.
And Meta is none-too-pleased with these latest obligations.
It’s worth noting that Meta is currently paying out over $1 billion a year on average in EU violations and penalties as it works to re-align its systems with these evolving requirements. And for the most part, Meta has had enough of playing along, and abiding by EU rules, which they claim unfairly target U.S. businesses.
Or at least, that’s the angle that Meta’s pushing via its army of lobbyists in Washington, in the hopes that U.S. President Donald Trump will step in and threaten economic sanctions in order to push back on such fines.
That hasn’t happened as yet, though White House officials have voiced their opposition to the EU’s approach, and have hinted at this becoming a bigger point of emphasis in upcoming trade negotations.
But right now at least, Meta’s at the end of the road on political and issues ads, and doesn’t feel that it can go further.
“We continue to believe online political advertising is a vital part of modern politics, connecting people to important information about the politicians that represent them, and ensuring candidates have a cost effective way of reaching their audiences. That’s why Meta has gone above and beyond many of our peers – and well beyond what is required by law – to ensure the political ads served on our platforms are authentic and information about them is transparent.”
So which is right?
Are EU regulators going too far in pushing Meta to align with more and more onerous transparency and reporting obligations, or is Meta right in seeing this more as a means to penalize digital platforms for their success?
From a revenue perspective it’s unlikely to be a big deal for Meta, which has previously noted that political ads are not a major part of its business.
But from a foundational standpoint, Meta’s right in noting that its reach is unmatched, and that can serve a valuable purpose in bringing political messaging to more people.
And while a level of transparency should be required, in order to enable users to understand how political ads are funded, and targeted, the added challenges in facilitating individual data approval could be a step too far.
We’ll see if Donald Trump agrees.
