Meta has made a big announcement that will affect EU advertising.
Let’s take a closer look…
announcement
In a recent announcement, Meta said:
Starting from early October 2025, we will no longer allow advertising for political, electoral and social issues on EU platforms.
This is a response to EU transparency and political advertising (TTPA) regulations, which introduce significant operational challenges and legal uncertainty. ”
What is it specifically?
TTPA requires new transparency measures for political advertising. Most importantly, this:
Data may only be used if the data subject has been explicitly and individually agreed to its use in political advertising
In other words, TTPA will require the advertising platform to obtain separate, explicit consent from each user to use them for political advertising in the target pool. Meta found that this requirement was unreasonable, which of course would cause problems. Without a paid and no paid subscription, users cannot simply opt out of ads.
Meta is not alone in this decision as they follow Google’s 2024 decision to start banning political advertising in the EU in October.
what happens?
If you are doing political advertising in the EU, this is obviously a big deal. This will no longer be possible. Don’t try to resolve this rule as this can lead to a swift ban.
It may also create a new filter where the ad account is incorrectly marked or prohibited from running ads Mehta believes qualifying in that special ad category. This is just another thing to worry about.
But if you are doing political advertising anywhere, be prepared. Although the EU has implemented some of the strictest data requirements, we often see legislation drafted by other countries following suit.
