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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.
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".
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.
> 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 Virginia 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 cause-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.
Also if you think about it, it would be bad if different people saw completely different political ads. Party could "promise" one thing to some people, and completely contradictory thing to other people. Since people would live in their tight bubbles, most of them wouldn't notice. And this ("dark ads") is something that is definitely technically possible right now.
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.
Folks want Facebook or whatever to be regulated into some perfect idea they have in their heads of how it should work and how it should be regulated. Sorry, many people have many views on that, and you're never going to be happy with an outcome. Even this article - Facebook is complying with EU rules/regulations and now you're not happy that your voice isn't heard through your preferred form of political activism. If Facebook allows this content, they break EU laws, or they have to allow some content you disagree with and now you're mad.
I don't know why people, right, left, or sideways keep putting up with this stuff.
There is a particular amount of economic privilege in this statement. While I am a person who doesn't use those services (and recently stopped using reddit), a large number of people are required to use those services for their job, so they can get money, so they can put food on the table.
Worse these companies ingrain themselves into a lot of physical locations and data collection from other sources so your not free of them.
Individual boycotts rarely work, even ones that attract attention from a good number of people, companies are better at waiting than individuals seem to be. Political action has a much higher likelihood of success when driven by smaller motivated groups.
I don't have any of those but I do need one messenger to communicate with my buddies in the EU. As I'm a "fuck the Zuck" person and an "ABM" (Anything But Microsoft), Telegram is my poison.
I don't have any doubt: I know it's not E2EE (and I doubt that one-on-one encrypted communication --it's a setting you MUST turn on-- in Telegram is actually really E2EE).
But Telegram is neither from the Zuck nor from Microsoft, so that's a big win for me.
Also basically everyone in the EU has Telegram now.
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.
Your take is exactly what keeps people apathetic and reliant on others.
"It's someone else's fault and someone else's responsibility" is what you're saying.
It relieves the individual of the outcome of their actions. 8 billion people matter.
If I were an abuser, I would LOVE to hear my victims say they are powerless. Think about that.
The above is just a tiny sample of what will happen to you when you start challenging people with power. You see, powerful "bad" people don't care how many accusations you make against them. They will flood the field with noise so people just ignore it. Now you, because you're a good guy have to be the most perfect little angel or all your followers will run away in disgust.
You know nothing about power and how to wield it. There better not be any skeletons in your closet because I will surface them. Hell, it doesn't even matter, I will plant them there.
Of course all the above is fictional, I'm not going to do these things to you because I'm not a person with millions of dollars threatened by your actions. But don't think threatening people with billions of dollars comes without cost.
And no, the power is very much not with the people: 4/4th of the pop sure as hell don't want to have precarious lives, yet they don't seem to manage to change that since forever, except if you squint.
I doubt that even 8,000 people “matter” in the sense of having meaningful power.
If only everyone would round up to the nearest dollar at checkout, we could end poverty!
Where does it belong?
Their argument is so generic they would probably say something equally as generic and useless like 'The billionaires"
I would hazard a guess theres stuff that I don't agree with you on, and we would want certain laws written differently. Its important to remember that we all vote for what we think is right, based on a system evolved over thousands of years to cater for human fallibility. The modern rhetoric of "us against the billionaires" is simply not how the world works, despite how much people want it to.
causally I think this is because we all grew up watching government operate glacially and so nobody really believes there's an alternative... but I eagerly await the day that millennials realize they can just win every election and fix everything that sucks about their world by basically trying really hard and coordinating with each other.
The public's disenchantment with politics didn't appear out of nowhere: most of them have personally experienced voting for one thing and getting the same old.
And I'd disagree that democracy still exists [0], if it ever did. The most speaking example, among many [1], is the Gaza genocide: I've never in my life seen as much 'trying really hard and coordinating', the vast majority of the population of almost every country wants this to stop, and yet, 3 years in, it doesn't, and the split on this between the population and the ruling class (politicians, the rich, what have you) is stark and the position of the ruling class very much correlates with the outcomes.
[0]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/16/vilificatio...
<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.
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.
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...
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.
It also defines political ad narrowly as placed by a political actor or campaign, or intended to influence some part of the political process, like voting, legislation, or regulatory action.
And your point about Meta being forced to act is also wrong, companies aren’t just passive institutions that only react to regulations, they constantly take decisions and actions, and regularly manufacture that type of situation as a way to lobby regulators
I don't know what motivation Facebook has to automatically limit certain political advertising and not other, but it certainly has nothing to do with EU regulation
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2026/09/19/the-lucr...
that _really_ doesn't seem what is happening
an AD for a theater play is by no standard political advertisement
Political advertisement in the regulations context is reasonable clearly defined.
An AD for a theater play is in general very clearly _not_ covered by it.
To add to it: Civil rights & feminism (in it's official non hijacked definition, aka. equal fair treatment of man and women) are fundamental rights in the EU, something the regulation very clearly states it doesn't want to impeach on. So arguments that you could accidentally misread the regulation to include banning _non-political advertisement about artistic work covering fundamental rights are a bit absurd_.
Anywhere here is the definition of political advertisement in given regulation:
> political advertising’ means the preparation, placement, promotion, publication, delivery or dissemination, by any means, of a message, normally provided for remuneration or through in-house activities or as part of a _political advertising campaign_:
> (a)by, for or on behalf of a _political actor_, unless it is of a purely private or a purely commercial nature; or
> (b) which is 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;
(emphasis mine)
So to put it simple: Meta is engaging in censure.
Stretching the term political to include more or less everything (like any topic people have opinions about a politician might speak about) is IMHO a pretty dishonest misinterpretation, especially given that it isn't even everything, but "everything Meta doesn't want to get involved with due to the current political environment".
At best this misinterpretation is due to laziness, at worst pushed by malicious actors in the US.
Given that Meta is a US company and the currently people in power there find this topics quit unpleasant and Metas long history of not faithfully complying with law and allowing all kind of ADs this looks very bad for them.
Meta aren't 'forced' to do anything other than treat the fines imposed by their lack of adherence to the laws of the territories they operate in as a BAU cost. Meta's profits run roughly the same as the GDP of Paraguay ($60.46 billion in 2025) - i.e. that Country's total value added by an economy through wages, profits, and taxes. Their revenue is on track to exceed the Ukrainian GDP next year.
This year Meta will pay up to $16.7bn to settle landmark US legal actions as result of not obeying US law, reporting $2.4 billion in legal fees in Q2 alone.
The sum total of the EU fines issued (read: appealed and not collected) likely won't even exceed Metas legal fees for the 2026 calendar year; i.e.:
* April 2025 - €200m (DMA "consent or pay" advertising model)
* November 2024 - €797.72m (Antitrust re:Facebook Marketplace)
* September 2024 - €90m (Storage of user passwords in plaintext)
* May 2023 - €1.2b (Unlawful EU-U.S. user data transfers)
* January 2023 - €390m (Forcing personalized ads via terms of service)
* December 2022 - €251m (2018 data breach and system design lapses)
* November 2022 - €265 (Inadequate protection against data scraping)
* September 2022 - €405m (Instagram children's privacy)
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.
Other examples of this bullshit being cookie consent dialogs and Apple acting like a victim for being forced to open their platform a bit.
The answer is right in front of your eyes: theguardian.com
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.
It’s pretty simple - the EU is unable to produce alternatives. This is because they don’t have the software talent for it.
Any talent they do have immediately runs for the SF Bay Area of the United States at the first opportunity.
You want good alternatives to Meta’s products? Pay engineers a competitive salary.
And no, the lower cost of living doesn’t even remotely begin to make up for the difference in comp. Same with healthcare - it’s effectively free in the United States for people who have jobs, especially so for SWEs.
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.
Wow, Europeans do have a penchant for recursively banning things :)
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...
Look at Meta argument in the article you linked to:
> For example, the TTPA places extensive restrictions on ad targeting and delivery which would restrict 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.
They don’t complain advertising is banned, they complain they cannot achieve their dream of perfect “personalized advertising”. It’s such a lame complain