Appears to be a response to EU regulation in 2025 banning political/electoral advertising [1]:
> Ending Political, Electoral and Social Issue Advertising in the EU in Response to Incoming European Regulation
I guess rather than micro-regulate what constitutes "designed to influence an election/referendum, voting behavior, or a legislative/regulatory process", they just decided to refuse to run ads for anything potentially politically or socially "sensitive".
I'm guessing that they also refuse to run ads for things that are less socially acceptable such as anti-feminism which I would say is a good thing.
The regulation asks to label political ads and restricts how targeted they can be. Meta is doing the usual whining because that touches their bottom line a tiny bit, there is nothing serious in their complaint. Political ads aren’t banned in the EU
Look at Meta argument in the article you linked to:
> For example, the TTPA places extensive restrictions on ad targeting and delivery which would restrict how political and social issue advertisers can reach their audiences and lead to people seeing less relevant ads on our platforms. It is yet another threat to the principles of personalized advertising, ignoring the benefits to advertisers and the people they want to reach.
They don’t complain advertising is banned, they complain they cannot achieve their dream of perfect “personalized advertising”. It’s such a lame complain
petcat · · focus · HN ↗
> Ending Political, Electoral and Social Issue Advertising in the EU in Response to Incoming European Regulation
I guess rather than micro-regulate what constitutes "designed to influence an election/referendum, voting behavior, or a legislative/regulatory process", they just decided to refuse to run ads for anything potentially politically or socially "sensitive".
I'm guessing that they also refuse to run ads for things that are less socially acceptable such as anti-feminism which I would say is a good thing.
[1] <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2025/07/ending-political-electoral-and-social-issue-advertising-in-the-eu/" rel="nofollow">https://about.fb.com/news/2025/07/ending-political-electoral...
dgellow · · focus · HN ↗
Look at Meta argument in the article you linked to:
> For example, the TTPA places extensive restrictions on ad targeting and delivery which would restrict how political and social issue advertisers can reach their audiences and lead to people seeing less relevant ads on our platforms. It is yet another threat to the principles of personalized advertising, ignoring the benefits to advertisers and the people they want to reach.
They don’t complain advertising is banned, they complain they cannot achieve their dream of perfect “personalized advertising”. It’s such a lame complain