Meta Joins Google In Ragequitting EU Political Ads Over Onerous Regulations

Meta has followed in Google's footsteps in deciding that pending EU political advertising regulations are so onerous to comply with that they're not even going to bother.

Zuckercorp said in a statement Friday that the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) regulation, due to go into effect this October, would impose excessive obligations and legal uncertainty on EU advertisers using its platform. As such, complying with the measure would overly restrict advertisers, and users would see less relevant ads, too. 

The TTPA governs targeted political, electoral, and social advertising in the European Union. It places a number of restrictions on that speech, requiring advertisers to identify key information, like who is advertising, in regard to what referendum, how much was paid, and what targeting techniques were used. Additionally, explicit consent to target the ads has to be granted by potential viewers, likely limiting the reach of such ads. It was passed in March 2024.

Meta argues that the TTPA has put it in a lose-lose situation with regard to advertising in the EU. Either the company adapts its policies "to offer an advertising product which doesn't work for our advertisers or users, without guarantee that our solution would be viewed as compliant, or stop allowing political, electoral, and social issue ads in the EU." 

It's chosen the latter, and blames the EU for it. "Once again, we're seeing regulatory obligations effectively remove popular products and services from the market, reducing choice and competition," Meta said in its statement.

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Organic posts on its platforms will still be allowed, Meta made sure to mention in its statement. "[The TTPA] won't prevent people in the EU from continuing to debate politics on our services, or stop politicians, candidates and political office holders from producing and sharing political content organically," Meta said. "They just won't be able to amplify this through paid advertising."

Meta's reasoning for banning political, electoral, and social issue ads mirrors Google's when it decided to do the same thing in November. According to Google's explanation at the time, "new operational challenges and legal uncertainties for political advertisers and platforms" under the TTPA were too tough to bother complying with. 

Like Meta, Google blamed the EU for its decision, too.

"Throughout the legislative process, we shared concerns about the potential impact of the TTPA and the challenges posed by some of its requirements, but the regulation ultimately failed to provide the necessary clarity and specificity that would have permitted us to comply with its requirements," Google said last year. 

The European Commission didn't respond to questions before publication, and Meta declined to add anything outside of what was in this morning's statement. ®