Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, is reportedly considering a company-wide ban on political advertising in Europe amid fears it could struggle to abide by new EU campaigning laws.
Policymakers in Brussels are proposing rules that would force online tech groups including Facebook and Google to divulge information about political adverts, including how much they cost, who paid for the content and how many people have viewed them.
Those proposals have caused concern among Meta executives, who are worried about how wide the definition of political ads might be and how hard it may be to comply with the rules, according to the Financial Times.
Meta – which is led by Mark Zuckerberg, its founder and chief executive – is now considering whether it would be easier to turn down all paid advertising for political campaigns on its platforms to avoid falling afoul of EU laws.
The corporation is among a raft of social media companies, including Twitter, which faced criticism for allowing users to spread misinformation and conspiracy theories across their platforms after the 2016 US presidential election, raising fears over how voters may have been manipulated by the content.
Facebook in particular came under fire after user data was found to have been used by Russian operatives that year to manipulate the election – facts that emerged through the Cambridge Analytical scandal. The now defunct political consultancy used the data of tens of millions of Facebook users without their consent to help clients target political adverts.
While Meta bosses initially resisted pressure to factcheck political advertising, it went on to temporarily suspend campaign adverts on its website in the run-up to important elections, including the US presidential vote in 2020.
The decision to ban political adverts in the EU would not necessarily have a significant financial impact, given that political advertising is said to make up a relatively small proportion of the company’s revenues.
Data gathered by the research group Insider Intelligence said political advertising in the US, which is one of Meta’s largest markets, generated $800m (£650m) in revenues between 2019 and 2020, accounting for less than 1% of total advertising revenue. Meta reported profits of $29bn in 2020.
Meta was contacted for comment.
