As the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising Act (TTPA) passed by the European Parliament in 2024 is about to take effect on October 10, 2025, Recently, Meta (Facebook's parent company) suddenly announced that from October 2025, it would completely stop placing political, election and social issue advertisements in Europe.
This article will break down the causes and consequences of this "digital advertising war" in detail, as well as its possible far-reaching impact on users, advertisers.
Why did Meta "ban" political ads?
Meta announced that it will suspend all political, electoral and social issue advertising throughout the European Union from October 2025. The trigger behind this is the EU Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising Regulation (TTPA), which will come into effect on October 10, 2025.
The regulation states:
Advertising platforms must disclose the identity of the funders, delivery targets, and targeting logic of political ads.
If personal data is used for political advertising targeting, the user's "explicit and independent consent" must be obtained.
To establish a publicly searchable advertising archive, the advertisements will be retained for at least 7 years.
Meta believes that this series of new regulations has caused:
" The overburdened processes and systems, high legal uncertainty, and significantly reduced advertising targeting efficiency have exceeded the platform's tolerance."
What is TTPA? Key points of the new EU regulations
TTPA, the full name of which is the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising Act, is a new law aimed at increasing transparency in political advertising. Its core provisions include:
All political and social issue ads must clearly disclose funding sources and targeting methods;
Platforms are not allowed to use user data for advertising without authorization and must obtain the user's "explicit and separate consent";
Technical operations such as algorithmic delivery and audience targeting of political ads need to be subject to more supervision;
If violated, the platform will face huge fines and compliance pressure.
This is a strong regulation to target "personalized advertising" and is also part of the EU's strategy to further implement digital transparency.
Why can't Meta stand it?
Meta released a statement saying:
"The compliance process required by TTPA is extremely complex and involves huge legal risks, which are difficult for existing systems to support."
They believe that this is not only a technical challenge for the platform, but will also lead to a large loss of advertisers - because " users must explicitly authorize their data to be used for political advertising ", which is almost impossible to achieve on a large scale, and the end result is a collapse in the accuracy of advertising.
In addition, Meta has long paid more than $1 billion in fines for EU regulations such as GDPR, and the company is "exhausted."
What impacts will this bring?
Advertiser:
Targeted voter reach in Europe via Meta advertising systems (Facebook, Instagram) is no longer possible;
Election and citizen advocacy organizations must find alternative channels (such as Google, TikTok, X, etc.);
The "cost-effectiveness" advantage of digital election campaigns will be greatly reduced.
Ordinary users:
You will see fewer politically-related ads;
It also means you may miss out on important public policy information;
But you will get stronger protection for data privacy.
Platforms (such as Meta, Google):
Difficult trade-offs need to be made between commercial profitability and compliance risks;
It may trigger more "strategic withdrawals", such as restricting certain types of advertising and blocking regional markets.
How to determine whether an advertisement is a "political advertisement"?
Want to place compliant ads on platforms like Meta? You need to understand what content will be classified as "political ads":
Involving political parties, candidates, and election activities;
Focus on controversial social issues (climate change, immigration, LGBTQ rights, abortion, etc.);
Advocacy to promote changes in legislation or public policy.
Once these areas are touched upon, you will need to submit identity verification + disclose funding information.
Practical tutorial: How can advertisers cope with new regulatory changes?
Even if political advertising is not carried out, this wave of rule changes will have a chain reaction on the entire social media advertising ecosystem.
Here are three practical suggestions:
1. Reconstruct advertising content
In the future, in the EU, advertising effectiveness will no longer rely on precise targeting, but will rely more on whether the content itself is contagious. You need to:
Strengthen UGC (user-generated content) and storytelling;
Focus on topic value + brand personality to improve the efficiency of natural communication;
Use trending tags and timely topics to increase organic reach.
2. Cultivate the first-party data pool
TTPA makes the platform "unreliable", and your official website, private domain and CRM system become your core assets:
It is recommended to deploy a cookie-less tracking solution as soon as possible;
Build your own email, SMS, and social media channels to reduce your reliance on the platform;
The goal of the campaign is to drive traffic to private domains, such as registration, subscription, download, etc.
3. Multi-platform strategy to diversify risks
It is recommended to gradually establish a "multi-platform + multi-touchpoint" advertising matrix:
Invest part of the budget in content platforms such as LinkedIn, Reddit, and Telegram;
Use localized DSP platforms (such as Adform) for brand exposure;
Consider cooperating with local European KOLs/KOCs to spread the word through content.
Future trends
More countries will follow the EU's lead in strengthening regulation of political advertising (the United States and Australia have already proposed it);
Advertising platforms will rely more on AI + native content + community guidance rather than traditional delivery models;
User privacy management will become the basic skill for every brand and operator.
Conclusion
The essence of this incident is a collision between the platform's business logic and the logic of democratic social supervision. Meta's decision to withdraw was a pragmatic choice after weighing the pros and cons. But it also raises a profound question:
When technology platforms have more "information power" than the government, who is responsible for truth and transparency?
Each of us should pay attention to this struggle because it determines whether the information you are "seen" and "see" in the future is true and transparent.
What do you think? Is Meta a "responsible exiter" or a "giant unwilling to accept regulation"?
