JAKARTA – The social media giant Meta Platforms announced it would stop all political ads, elections, and social issues on its platforms across the EU region from early October 2025. This decision was taken following the enactment of a new regulation from the European Union which according to Meta created huge legal uncertainty and operational challenges.
Meta’s shift reflects a similar decision from Google that already announced the termination of political advertising in the EU in November 2024. The two technology companies from the United States appear to be responding to the increasingly stringent regulatory pressure from the European Union on the power of Big Tech, particularly in terms of transparency and accountability in the spread of political content.
The new EU regulation in question is Transparency and Tarobtaining of Political Advertising (TTPA), which goes into effect on October 10, 2025. This rule requires all digital platforms to clearly label any political advertisements that air on their platforms including information about who pays for the ads, how much it costs, and which elections are campaign tarobtains.
If violated, the company could be fined up to 6% of their total annual income globally.
“Starting in early October 2025, we no longer allow political advertising, elections, or social issues on our platform in the European Union,” Meta wrote in a blog post.
Meta called this decision a difficult decision taken as a result of the huge challenges of TTPA regulations. The company assesses that the new regulation will actually have a negative impact on the quality of information that can be accessed by voters in Europe.
“We believe that personalized advertising is critical to many advertisers, including those running campaigns to educate voters on social issues affecting public discourse,” Meta continued in a statement.
Regulations like TTPA significantly undermine our ability to provide this service, not only reduce the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, but also reduce voters’ ability to access comprehensive information.
Currently, Meta-owned platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are also the subject of investigation by the European Commission for their alleged failure to deal with the spread of disinformation and misleading advertising ahead of the 2024 European Parliament election.
The investigation was carried out based on the Digital Services Act (DSA), a large regulation from the European Union demanding large digital platforms to be more responsible for dealing with illegal and harmful content. Failure to comply with DSA could also lead to sanctions of up to 6% of the company’s annual global revenue.
Not only Meta, other platforms such as ByteDance’s TikTok are also under the supervision of the European Union. TikTok is accutilized of failing to prevent foreign interference in elections, especially during the presidential election in Romania in November last year.
Meta and Google’s decision to withdraw from political advertising in Europe raises questions about the balance between the protection of democracy from digital manipulation and the people’s right to receive broad and directed information.
While European regulators continue to emphasize the importance of transparency and security of digital elections, global technology companies appear to be struggling to adapt their systems to the legal complexity imposed.
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