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Discussion (95 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
It imposes substantial bureaucratic compliance burden on advertising platforms to accept ads that deal with political issues.
Meta decided that the revenue wasn't worth the compliance burden, so they do not accept any political advertising at all. They filter anything that smells like political or social issues, whether it be a campaign about anti-immigration or a play about feminism, because if they accept it they will get heavily fined by the EU.
This is why Meta does not ban this advertising outside of the EU. It's a EU regulatory problem. The Register does not mention this anywhere in the article.
It does impose significant compliance burdens with massive fines.
You have to report who paid for the ad, where the money came from, what political process it relates to, you have to do this through the entire chain (i.e., ad agency, ad exchanges, publishers), you have to attest to the ad's accuracy, they have to publish all the information through a central EU repository, they are not allowed to use any person-level ad targeting, they have to track whether it pertains to any active EU bill or legislative process within three months of decision-making and, if so, they have to attest that the entity and funds come only from the EU (not just directly, but indirectly).
The penalties for mistakes are enormous. The act allows penalties of up to 6% of global revenue. That's around $10 billion for Meta.
I'm pretty sure I would make the same decision when the EU is threatening to fine me for $10 billion for making any mistake on the rules for the TTPA.
I don’t know how the cost-benefit analysis happened within Meta when considering approaches but presumably they would rather be getting paid to show more ads rather than not being paid. Their policies may also change over time as they invest more in their systems or if the rules change.
Ultimately it seems to me like the real problem was that the advertiser in this case was quite tiny and the representative they spoke to perhaps didn’t do a great job of explaining the issue (and the customer was too insignificant to justify a more high-touch approach). Presumably if you’re paying a lot more for advertising you can get better treatment and perhaps Meta would also appropriately label political ads if you were wanting to spend a lot on them.
They didn't claim that. Many EU regulations don't actually ban the thing, but make it more expensive, cumbersome, risky, etc... This has a similar effect as censorship, but doesn't imply there is some law that say "it is illegal to say X".
> liable and designed to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, voting behaviour or a legislative or regulatory process, at Union, national, regional or local level
Now, we all agree feminism is an important civil writes topic and Virgian Woolf should be (and is) celebrated in the western world. But how can a platform that is explicitly not allowed to permit advertising for political or social "causes" be allowed to run paid ads about "feminism" especially while Equal Pay for Equal Work is such a hot-button political issue [1] all over Europe?
So on the one hand we have the EU saying that no political or caused-centric advertising is permitted, and on the other hand the regulation is so overly broad that it is left up to everyone else to "figure it out".
So, as we see here, most social media has just chosen to ban it all completely.
[1] https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/ju...
This doesn't sound like a good thing. Why shouldn't a political group be able to target people who are going to care the most about an issue/politician with an ad? Basically Meta has too good of a profile, so they aren't able to target ads. I would want to know personally, if Politician X is for/against a policy I feel strongly about.
Obviously, Meta's most important revenue stream comes from scam advertisements, so all other ads are expendable.
As far as I know, political ads just must be labelled as such and there are some other small restrictions. Definitely not something that is hard for meta to implement, if they wanted to. But I admit that fines are very severe (up to 6% of annual turnover, in theory), so I see why they don't want to risk it.
It’s the same bullshit as “we could stop climate change if only we bothered to bring cloth bags to the store instead of picking up a disposable plastic bag each time”.
“We” don’t have any power. And once you accept that, you can stop blaming yourself and your neighbors for the world you live in, and direct your anger where it belongs.
<Ned Flanders' father>: We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!
People who say this have never tried, do nothing themselves to contribute to improving the problem or to convince others or the government to improve the problem besides perhaps complaining on the internet in a bubble of likeminded people who don't need their minds changed.
This is meta's choice.
"Jane, an employee at a big tech company, has been placed on leave after video of her emotional breakdown at work went viral. Her employers tell Jane she must be evaluated by crisis therapist Loyd before she can be reinstated to the job that gives her life meaning."
https://www.writerstheatre.org/events/job
Meta doesn't do this outside the EU, and they didn't do this in the EU prior to the TTPA. Draw your own conclusions about whether this is a "meta problem."
Move along now, don’t make a racket, don’t do anything to disturb count Zuckerberg and his masters. Go away with your progressive ideas like… Allowing women to express themselves.
As per Meta's own guidelines, they simply require increased authenticity and transparency to run social issue ads that seek to influence public opinion through discussion, debate or advocacy for or against important topics, like health and civil and social rights.
Meta literally spell it out with an equivalent example of advertising for an equivalent event - in this case a 'Civil Rights Exhibition' - on Slide 6 as eligible to run in the EU.
https://efa-net.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/META_EU_Update...
The fact that Meta is choosing instead to refuse the ads is therefore purely performative and likely intended to elicit precisely those sort of anti-regulation comments in their aid.
I know banning or forcing meta to obey laws in the US is impossible due to bribes (political contributions), but in the EU I would think meta could at the very least be reined in.
No. Meta enforces a broad ban because they don't want EU to regulate them, so they drag their feet and create the most possible "unwanted collateral damage" so people will get upset at the regulation instead of the company. So, pieces like this from The Guardian are surely needed.
This strategy of "we will lie about what the law enforces, so that we can blame the regulator instead of the company" is getting old.
The answer is right in front of your eyes: theguardian.com
Wow, Europeans do have a penchant for recursively banning things :)
Plenty of hands seem to be well greased over there given how long it takes to issue fines for clear&cut violations of EU regulation.
Very lgbt unfriendly!
My money is that this is manufactured by some PR team.
Possibly the Ad's text was purposely inflammatory (something like "overthrow the patriarchy" or something) so that they can say it was banned.
> Ending Political, Electoral and Social Issue Advertising in the EU in Response to Incoming European Regulation
I guess rather than micro-regulate what constitutes "designed to influence an election/referendum, voting behavior, or a legislative/regulatory process", they just decided to refuse to run ads for anything potentially politically or socially "sensitive".
I'm guessing that they also refuse to run ads for things that are less socially acceptable such as anti-feminism which I would say is a good thing.
[1] https://about.fb.com/news/2025/07/ending-political-electoral...
As per Meta's own guidelines, they simply require increased authenticity and transparency to run social issue ads that seek to influence public opinion through discussion, debate or advocacy for or against important topics, like health and civil and social rights.
Meta literally spell it out with an equivalent example of advertising for an equivalent event - in this case a 'Civil Rights Exhibition' - on Slide 6 as eligible to run in the EU.
https://efa-net.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/META_EU_Update...