Well you can also just stop using these products. I don't have or use Facebook, Instagram, Whats App, Reddit (since they removed old.reddit.com unless you have an account), TikTok, Snap, or anything else.
Folks want Facebook or whatever to be regulated into some perfect idea they have in their heads of how it should work and how it should be regulated. Sorry, many people have many views on that, and you're never going to be happy with an outcome. Even this article - Facebook is complying with EU rules/regulations and now you're not happy that your voice isn't heard through your preferred form of political activism. If Facebook allows this content, they break EU laws, or they have to allow some content you disagree with and now you're mad.
I don't know why people, right, left, or sideways keep putting up with this stuff.
Yes it does. You're using the product and seeing the ad. You and others are mad that the product is complying with the regulation in a way you don't prefer. Stop using the product, and no ad is there to be seen and none of this matters.
> When the newly reopened Teatre Raval, which seats 193 spectators, asked Meta, the parent company of the two social media sites, why its publicity had been blocked, it was told “any mention of civil rights, feminism or social reform [topics that are central to Woolf’s work] are usually classified as ‘social topics’ by our automatic system” and are filtered out.
That’s Meta response. There is no mention of any regulation in that article.
Just because The Guardian intentionally didn't mention the regulations or role they might play and you want to be pedantic about their existence doesn't mean there aren't any.
Businesses are allowed to and routinely comply with regulations to their best ability even if it wasn't as intended based on the act of the regulator/government.
It wasn't in the article. Ok we can move past that now.
You can ban something by requiring excessive compliance with a regulation that is unobtainable or very unprofitable. The Guardian failed to even mention the regulation or what may have motivated Meta's actions.
Meta go one further and literally spell it out with an equivalent example of advertising for an equivalent event in their own published guidelines on Slide - in this case a 'Civil Rights Exhibition' - as eligible to run in the EU.
This was either an automated filter set to 'anti-woke' or some childish attempt at malicious compliance, or both. Thousands of such plays are advertised on numerous platforms across Europe every year without incident or comment.
That's Meta's response to advertising rules that they find too onerous. Governments keep trying to regulate businesses to appease the voters, sometimes they go too far and the business decides the sensible thing is to leave the market.
This is especially an issue with insurance in disaster prone areas. Insurance company comes along and notices that in the east it's houses very close to the beach (hurricanes/storm surge), in California it's wildfires. Insurance companies raise the premiums in such areas to reflect the risk, the people living there scream. The state does things that mandate spreading the risk--now the dangerous behavior continues but others pay the cost. And those others start screaming because they are paying insurance rates way above the value delivered. And sometimes we insurance companies simply pull up stakes and leave--and we see states responding by saying if you want to do any business in the state you'll provide the homeowner's insurance at a "fair" (not fair, it's a price they're losing money on) rate. I'm not aware of any insurance companies completely leaving a state yet.
We have seen this with malpractice insurance for doctors, though. The biggest carrier simply quit and the market went crazy. Locally we had doctors who would pay more for malpractice insurance for delivering a baby than the insurance payment for delivering said baby.
So how exactly is an ad for a play by an author who died 85 years ago political and requiring regulation? A person who died so long ago that, even in the EU with its onerous copyright regime, her work is in the public domain!?
It is a general thing that people only want to ban or regulate things that are against the social standards of their political organization, feminism and civil rights are two things that are pretty central to the EU. I know they must be, because I always read American right-wing commentators say about how feminism and civil rights are destroying the EU. For this reason I do not believe it is actually normal compliance with any regulation, it is malicious compliance meant to undermine the regulation.
I am sure some person who is glad for the malicious compliance would like to make a statement to the effect that it is the EU's fault that Meta has done it this way, so allow me to forestall it with some other observations.
If Meta feels the law requires them to remove ads for any art that supports a cause, including causes that are considered mainstream and accepted in the EU, then almost no art can ever advertised.
Guernica may not be shown, as it was anti-fascist, AND I should note Picasso's works are still under copyright so we know that's got to be regulated STAT!
The works of anyone who has ever been against slavery must not be mentioned, no Twain, Melville, Stowe, etc. etc.
But let's not stop there, surely Shakespeare's Richard III did not support that fellow's claims to the throne of England and we should not discuss it, don't tell me anything about it being a long time ago - if for Meta Virginia Wolf springs eternal then surely Shakespeare should get the same benefit of censorship. Dante's taking sides in the civil wars that damaged the Italy of his time should allow us to throw him off the platform as well!
There is very little art and few artists in this world that have been so anodyne that Meta could not censor them for having supported a social issue. I certainly hope they will do so, and quickly, so that people may be persuaded to abandon the platform. I also hope that this post is clear enough that I don't have to hear any more about how Meta had to do it the way they did, as I have recently been talking with my ex-wife, so my allowance for hearing dumb stuff is all used for today.
colingauvin · · focus · HN ↗
tygon · · focus · HN ↗
ericmay · · focus · HN ↗
Folks want Facebook or whatever to be regulated into some perfect idea they have in their heads of how it should work and how it should be regulated. Sorry, many people have many views on that, and you're never going to be happy with an outcome. Even this article - Facebook is complying with EU rules/regulations and now you're not happy that your voice isn't heard through your preferred form of political activism. If Facebook allows this content, they break EU laws, or they have to allow some content you disagree with and now you're mad.
I don't know why people, right, left, or sideways keep putting up with this stuff.
dgellow · · focus · HN ↗
ericmay · · focus · HN ↗
dgellow · · focus · HN ↗
ericmay · · focus · HN ↗
dgellow · · focus · HN ↗
That’s Meta response. There is no mention of any regulation in that article.
ericmay · · focus · HN ↗
Businesses are allowed to and routinely comply with regulations to their best ability even if it wasn't as intended based on the act of the regulator/government.
For ex:
[1] <a href="https://efa-net.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/META_EU_Update_Ads_about_Social_issues_Elections_or_Politics.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://efa-net.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/META_EU_Update...
[2] <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/transparency-and-targeting-of-political-advertising.html" rel="nofollow">https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/transpare...
dgellow · · focus · HN ↗
Have you read that regulation? Because I did, and it’s not any form of ban on political advertising
ericmay · · focus · HN ↗
You can ban something by requiring excessive compliance with a regulation that is unobtainable or very unprofitable. The Guardian failed to even mention the regulation or what may have motivated Meta's actions.
piltdownman · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://efa-net.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/META_EU_Update_Ads_about_Social_issues_Elections_or_Politics.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://efa-net.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/META_EU_Update...
This was either an automated filter set to 'anti-woke' or some childish attempt at malicious compliance, or both. Thousands of such plays are advertised on numerous platforms across Europe every year without incident or comment.
dgellow · · focus · HN ↗
emmelaich · · focus · HN ↗
LorenPechtel · · focus · HN ↗
This is especially an issue with insurance in disaster prone areas. Insurance company comes along and notices that in the east it's houses very close to the beach (hurricanes/storm surge), in California it's wildfires. Insurance companies raise the premiums in such areas to reflect the risk, the people living there scream. The state does things that mandate spreading the risk--now the dangerous behavior continues but others pay the cost. And those others start screaming because they are paying insurance rates way above the value delivered. And sometimes we insurance companies simply pull up stakes and leave--and we see states responding by saying if you want to do any business in the state you'll provide the homeowner's insurance at a "fair" (not fair, it's a price they're losing money on) rate. I'm not aware of any insurance companies completely leaving a state yet.
We have seen this with malpractice insurance for doctors, though. The biggest carrier simply quit and the market went crazy. Locally we had doctors who would pay more for malpractice insurance for delivering a baby than the insurance payment for delivering said baby.
bryanrasmussen · · focus · HN ↗
It is a general thing that people only want to ban or regulate things that are against the social standards of their political organization, feminism and civil rights are two things that are pretty central to the EU. I know they must be, because I always read American right-wing commentators say about how feminism and civil rights are destroying the EU. For this reason I do not believe it is actually normal compliance with any regulation, it is malicious compliance meant to undermine the regulation.
I am sure some person who is glad for the malicious compliance would like to make a statement to the effect that it is the EU's fault that Meta has done it this way, so allow me to forestall it with some other observations.
If Meta feels the law requires them to remove ads for any art that supports a cause, including causes that are considered mainstream and accepted in the EU, then almost no art can ever advertised.
Guernica may not be shown, as it was anti-fascist, AND I should note Picasso's works are still under copyright so we know that's got to be regulated STAT!
The works of anyone who has ever been against slavery must not be mentioned, no Twain, Melville, Stowe, etc. etc.
But let's not stop there, surely Shakespeare's Richard III did not support that fellow's claims to the throne of England and we should not discuss it, don't tell me anything about it being a long time ago - if for Meta Virginia Wolf springs eternal then surely Shakespeare should get the same benefit of censorship. Dante's taking sides in the civil wars that damaged the Italy of his time should allow us to throw him off the platform as well!
There is very little art and few artists in this world that have been so anodyne that Meta could not censor them for having supported a social issue. I certainly hope they will do so, and quickly, so that people may be persuaded to abandon the platform. I also hope that this post is clear enough that I don't have to hear any more about how Meta had to do it the way they did, as I have recently been talking with my ex-wife, so my allowance for hearing dumb stuff is all used for today.