Without advertising on social and political topics on meta platforms. “It will come to who tries for whom more efficiently”

Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, no longer allows October 7 “the dissemination of advertisements related to social, elections or politics” in the European Union. The media expert and entrepreneur Dragoș Stanca and the digital research expert Mădălina Voinea explained, for the public Hotnews, that, in their opinion, this decision will lead to the decrease of transparent political campaigns and will increase the hidden campaigns. And the NGOs will be silent.

The Decision comes after the European Union introduced in 2024 the Regulation on transparency and directing of political advertisements (TTPA), which enters into force on October 10. He aims at greater transparency of advertising on social media and speaks of preventing the exposure of European citizens to misinformation.

Google is also going to stop political and social topics in the European Union. If the regulation is not respected, companies risk fines that reach 6% of the global turnover.

The EU regulation does not, however, effectively prohibit political or social issues, but brings new rules for them. Each advertisement must be accompanied by more details that will be public.

TTPA requires that all political advertisements are clearly labeled, include whoever funds, how much they cost and how they were targeted, and targeting based on political or religious opinions is forbidden.

The effect immediately will be the opposite of the desired effect

Although through the TTPA the European Union proposes greater transparency on these platforms, the media expert Dragoș Stanca explains, for the public Hotnews that “the immediate effect will be a decrease in the visibility of the political and civic campaigns assumed and marked transparent from Social Media”.

The parties and NGOs will have to rely more on organic content, influencers, traditional media and events, than on targeted advertisements.

“Unfortunately, political communication will migrate to less transparent areas, through indirectly sponsored content or WhatsApp, Telegram – where monitoring is difficult,” says the entrepreneur.

The basic rule will become, he says, “who deceives who more efficiently.” “And the level of conversation during the election campaigns will degrade even harder,” Stanca believes.

The digital research expert from Expert Forum Mădălina Voinea also argues that the prohibition “does nothing but encourage the black market of political promotion.”

“The official advertisements will disappear, but the messages for political purpose will move to other forms: false accounts, influences that promote masked messages, PR campaigns through third parties.” This will mean less clarity for the public and a black market for political ads that “becomes more and more credible.”

“If the legal political advertisements become impossible, these campaigns become the only option to promote, very easy to abuse the marketing companies or the volunteer teams that politicians invoke. The decision favors precisely the masked political behavior that the legislation should limit,” she explains.

Meta does not have the ability to filter content

Both Mădălina Voinea and Dragoș Stanca also raise the problem of inability to distinguish between the types of content.

Algorithms cannot distinguish effectively between a political campaign and a civic voting or a humanitarian campaign, explains the expert from Efor. “In addition, I saw that it is increasingly based on moderation and automatic content review, which brings many controversial areas: how to interpret an artificial intelligence, how to distinguish content, moderation errors.”

“What is a social issue (no social theme)?”, Stanca asks, emphasizing that those who decide are Meta's Botes or officials.

He also offers an example: “this discussion (no subject of the Meta's Decision) is” Social Issue “. If Hotnews will try to turn the Facebook post with this text into advertising, it will not be allowed, because of the new regulation.”

“A massive cutting of visibility” for NGOs

Mădălina Voinea tells how, in many countries of the European Union, Meta is almost synonymous with everything that defines the “online public space” – represents, from its point of view, a public utility infrastructure.

For NGOs, civic groups or even independent candidates, this decision means “a massive visibility cut. If you can no longer promote a message about civic participation, transparency or clean choices, then you are practically reduced to silence.”

Asked why social themes and political campaigns were placed by Meta in the same category, Dragoș Stanca says it is because of the very wide definition offered to the concept of “political advertising” in the new regulation.

“Any paid message that can influence a political or legislative process is subject to the law – so campaigns on topics, environment, human rights or education. Meta preferred to block everything that could be interpreted as a political, to avoid mistakes and sanctions. It is cheaper to pretend that they have no more electoral advertising,” he explains.

The responsibility of social networks “tends to zero”

“The prohibition of paid advertisements reduces micro-tartargeting abuses, but does not stop misinformation, manipulation by influence or organic viral content,” says Media Dragoș Stanca expert. The difference is that now, “the responsibility of the platforms tends to zero,” he adds.

The measures are effective “just to escape the responsibility platforms,” ​​says Mădălina Voinea.

Meta and Google, explains the expert, take advantage of the tensions between the EU and the United States and “evade” the transparency obligations imposed by the EU. If, theoretically, they have no political advertisements, then they have nothing to report.

Instead of investing in mechanisms of verification, labeling and archiving, “platforms prefer to completely close the tap. It is a convenient solution for them, but completely inefficient for society,” says Mădălina Voinea.

If the EU's goal was to reduce misinformation, then the Meta and Google decision propagates the idea that social media should be just entertainment, not a space for debate, information and civic involvement, “which is deeply false”.

“Platforms are one of the main environments in which people form political opinions and where they are informed, but these private companies insist that they can dictate a parallel reality in which they remain fixed as” forms of entertainment and communication “,” she concludes.

Meta says the EU regulation will reduce people's access to political information

“It is a difficult decision-one that I made in response to the future EU regulation on transparency and directing of political advertisements, which introduces significant operational challenges and legal uncertainties,” said Mark Zuckerberg's company in July, when announcing the new regulation.

Meta also transmitted that political advertising helps to connect people with “important information about politicians”.

“We believe that personalized advertisements are essential for a wide range of advertising agents, including those involved in campaigns meant to inform voters about important social issues that shape public discourse. Regulations such as TTPA significantly undermine our ability to provide these services, affecting not only the efficiency of advertising campaigns, but also the ability to have an access to the information, but also Meta in July.

Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok, investigated by the EU for misinformation in elections

Meta – Facebook and Instagram platforms – are investigated by the European Commission for the suspicion that they have not been able to combat misinformation and deceitful advertising before the 2024 MEPs, according to Reuters.

Tiktok, a company owned by Bytedance, is also in the EU attention for an alleged violation of the European Regulation that obliges the platform to properly evaluate the systemic risks related to the integrity of the elections and to intervene when there are violations, especially during the presidential elections in Romania, which took place in November 2024. the platform.