MEPs confronted Meta's "allergy to EU legislation" during a debate in the European Parliament on Thursday (16 October) — raising their concerns over the company's decision to end all political, electoral, and social advertising in the EU in the wake of a new law.
The scrutiny session in the internal market and consumer protection committee comes amid implementation challenges of the transparency and targeting of political advertising law, which came into force last week, on 10 October.
Facebook, Instagram and other platforms, which host major online ad services, have decided to remove all political ads for EU services altogether, rather than adopting a more targeted approach as intended by the new EU rules.
But as Meta's actions go beyond what the legislation requires, MEPs requested a discussion with officials from the Silicon Valley giant.
"By restricting personalised ads, the regulation limits voters' access to comprehensive and relevant information," said Meta's EU lobbyist Marco Pancini.
Pancini outlined the three issues Mark Zuckerberg's company sees with the legislation — limiting the use of collected personal data for targeted political ads, requiring users' specific consent for political ads, and an unclear definition of what is now considered 'political'.
These issues, he said, left Meta with "the choice to either offer an ineffective product or withdraw from political ads."
While some MEPs acknowledged legitimate issues with implementing the law, such as unclear guidelines and confusion around consent, they disagree with Meta's approach.
Responding to the Meta representative, Italian liberal MEP Sandro Gozi, who has been leading the parliament’s work in this field, said: "You just confirm one thing, that Meta has got an allergy to EU legislation. I mean, you're really allergic. Your CEO, Zuckerberg, is allergic."
"We are not forbidding, banning, or targeting. We don't want the sensitive personal data to be used," Gozi added, saying the law is "not too complicated. Only it's not in your interest".
For her part, Dutch Green MEP Kim van Sparrentak said Meta "cannot sell ads anymore in the way you want."
"You cannot target me on the fact that I'm a lesbian anymore, but only based on my location. I think that's quite nice," van Sparrentak said.
She argued that Meta’s justification of their decision to withdraw all social and political ads in Europe feels like “it's a big lobby trick from Meta to spread sort of misinformation about all this 'stupid law' because you just don't like it".
Meanwhile, a commission official explained that they see Meta's move as a commercial choice, but they do not see a need to remove all political ads.
A report by the European Digital Media Observatory found in the 15 member states during the run up to the 2024 European election, nearly 30,000 online political ads were placed, totalling €8.7 m spent.
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Owen Carpenter-Zehe is a junior reporter from the US at EUobserver, covering European politics.
Owen Carpenter-Zehe is a junior reporter from the US at EUobserver, covering European politics.