The U.S. social media company Meta Platforms announced on Friday that it will stop political, electoral, and social issue advertising on its platform in the European Union in early October due to legal ambiguities brought on by EU regulations that target political advertising.
Meta’s remark paralleled the announcement made by Alphabet subsidiary Google last November, highlighting Big Tech’s resistance to EU regulations intended to limit their influence and ensure greater accountability and transparency.
Concerns over disinformation and foreign meddling in elections throughout the 27-nation bloc led to the European Union’s Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) regulation, which will go into effect on October 10.
Big Tech businesses are subject to fines of up to 6% of their yearly sales if they fail to explicitly designate political advertising on their platforms, including which elections are being targeted, who paid for it, and how much.
This requirement is imposed by EU law.
“From early October 2025, we will no longer allow political, electoral, and social issue ads on our platforms in the EU,” Meta wrote on its blog.
“This is a difficult decision—one we’ve taken in response to the EU’s incoming Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) regulation, which introduces significant operational challenges and legal uncertainties,” it stated.
According to Meta, TTPA requirements create an unmanageable amount of legal uncertainty and complexity for marketers and platforms doing business in the EU.
It claimed that EU regulations would eventually harm Europeans.
“We believe that personalized ads are critical to a wide range of advertisers, including those engaged in campaigns to inform voters about important social issues that shape public discourse,” Meta stated.
“Regulations, like the TTPA, significantly undermine our ability to offer these services, not only impacting the effectiveness of advertisers’ outreach but also the ability of voters to access comprehensive information,” the business stated.
