Facebook's parent company "Meta" will not allow political ads and announcements on its online platforms in the European Union from October, AFP reported, quoted by BTA.
The reason for this is "unenforceable requirements" from an EU regulation, the corporation announced on Friday. The "difficult decision" is in response to the new Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) Regulation, which comes into force in October.
The ban on political advertising will apply to the online services of "Meta", "Facebook" and "Instagram", as well as to the messaging service "WhatsApp". It was only in June that "Meta" announced the introduction of new advertising features for its largely ad-free messaging service.
For "Meta" this was a "difficult decision", the company said. The group explained that "unfortunately the TTPA imposes significant additional obligations on our processes and systems, creating an unsustainable level of complexity and legal uncertainty for advertisers and platforms operating in the EU".
According to the EU, users of online services must be able to clearly identify political advertising. The new rules are the EU's response, among other things, to the "Cambridge Analytica" scandal, also linked to "Facebook". The British company is alleged to have influenced the 2016 US presidential election. and the UK Brexit referendum that year through mass analysis of social media data.
Under the Digital Services Act (DSA), digital companies in the European Union are now subject to stricter rules on advertising on their platforms. For example, they must disclose the algorithms behind personalized ads and store information about who is funding the ads in a database.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been highly critical of European regulations and accused Brussels of “censorship” in January. Zuckerberg compared the EU fines on his company to customs duties.