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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 7h

Many of the ads pushed people towards more direct forms of communication with the party and its satellites, designed to replace the loss of paid advertising, which Fidesz has dominated (around 80% of total spent since 2023) in Hungary for many years.

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 7h

In Hungary, it looks as if Meta's decision to end political advertising in Europe (announced late July) led to a significant increase in activity by Fidesz and its supporters/allies.

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d

bsky.app/profile/whot...

Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d

They've now changed their EU ad library too:
- No specific searches for political ads
- Only "all time" spending reports available (to Oct 3rd)
- No audience tab/targeting data

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d

To clarify - this is about paid ads. Those groups would be all organic/algorithmically recommended content.

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d

Apologies for the confusion earlier. Some of the ad library pages initially weren't loading correctly, and it looked as if all the data had been removed.

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d

If that's right, it's a bit better than Google's approach (who deleted their equivalent data). The historical record of what campaigns said, how much they spent and roughly to whom, is still there (for now at least).

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d

They've now changed their EU ad library too:
- No specific searches for political ads
- Only "all time" spending reports available (to Oct 3rd)
- No audience tab/targeting data

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d

The ads are still there - trying to work out what's changed and why it was so buggy for a bit there.

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d

Deleted the thread, as the ad lib was behaving oddly, and need to document the changes properly.

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d

We had been trying the last few days (since Google removed theirs), but their API is so slow and rate limited it was impossible.

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d

They stopped accepting ads, but we're 🤷 as to why they (and Google) felt they needed to delete historical data (malicious compliance?). Here's their announcement: about.fb.com/news/2025/07...

Ending Political, Electoral and Social Issue Advertising in the EU in Response to Incoming European Regulation

Update on October 6, 2025 at 10am PT: As of today, political, electoral and social issue adverts are no longer able to be delivered in the EU. Originally

about.fb.com

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d

Their API returns: "Political ad searches for countries in the European Union aren't available."

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 2d

There are real trade-offs. Most political ads aren't bad, and this change likely helps bad actors more than it protects democracy. Lots more about that here:
fulldisclosure.whotargets.me/p/how-and-wh...

How (and why) to fix political ads in the EU

Meta follows Google (and TikTok and Microsoft) and leaves the EU political advertising market. The damage will be significant.

fulldisclosure.whotargets.me

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 2d

Meta ends (at least for now) political ads in the EU today. Per their ad library data, they've run nearly 11,000,000 different political, social and issue ads in the EU since 2018 and made around €800m from them.

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d

The full dashboard is here: trends.whotargets.me/dashboard/co...

Czechia | 2025 Czechia Election | Google & Meta

trends.whotargets.me

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d

Worth noting here that compiling this data was more of a challenge than usual. Different alliances, new parties and Google halting political ads (and killing off associated transparency tools) made researching this data more difficult than usual.

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d

The SPOLU alliance were the top spending digital advertisers for the election in Czechia. Winner Andrej Babiš' ANO 2011 party only the third biggest buyer.*

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Reposted by Who Targets Me

Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 8d

Google just wiped EU data from its political ad library. Meta’s ban on political ads in the EU starts soon and we're worried they might do the same.

We need a backup of the EU Meta Ad Library now. If you have data (2018–present) or skills to help, let us know:
ir96l7a6vsf.typeform.com/to/fIk9XMZT

Save the EU Ad Libraries

Meta may soon switch off ad libraries in the EU and remove data going back to 2018. Help ensure this data is archived for research.

ir96l7a6vsf.typeform.com

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 4d

Thank you!

Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 7d

Dutch political parties, particularly the smaller ones, don't much seem to like the platforms' decision to ban political ads in Europe.

Claes de Vreese @claesdevreese.bsky.social · 7d

Politieke reclames online verdwijnen midden in de verkiezingscampagne. Meta (FB, Insta) en Google (ook YouTube) hebben dat besloten.

Wat betekent dat, voor partijen, voor de campagnes, en voor de mogelijkheid om kiezers te bereiken?

Vanochtend in ⬇️

www.rtl.nl/nieuws/econo...

Sociale media op slot voor politieke advertenties: 'Lastig voor kleine partijen'

De Tweede Kamerverkiezingen komen met rasse schreden naderbij, maar de campagnes zien er dit jaar behoorlijk anders uit. Politieke partijen kunnen vanaf vandaag namelijk niet meer adverteren op social...

www.rtl.nl

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 7d

Notably, the Reform ads target Caerphilly in Wales (forthcoming by-election), Wales and Scotland (as a whole, elections next year) and Clacton-on-Sea (Nigel Farage's seat, but no immediately obvious reason to do this).

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 7d

Both the Conservatives and Reform have launched digital ads and data capture petitions calling for a stop to the government's plans for a national digital ID scheme.

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 8d

UK political party conference season always throws up a few unusual digital ads. Here's some from "The Freedom Association" (who seem to be pro-tobacco and are probably breaking Meta's policy against this) and the "Free Market Conservatives" (who haven't run an ad in six years).

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 8d

Google just wiped EU data from its political ad library. Meta’s ban on political ads in the EU starts soon and we're worried they might do the same.

We need a backup of the EU Meta Ad Library now. If you have data (2018–present) or skills to help, let us know:
ir96l7a6vsf.typeform.com/to/fIk9XMZT

Save the EU Ad Libraries

Meta may soon switch off ad libraries in the EU and remove data going back to 2018. Help ensure this data is archived for research.

ir96l7a6vsf.typeform.com

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Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 8d

The folks @democracyclub.org.uk provide an invaluable service to democracy in the UK. They're such an important part of national democratic infrastructure. They've just started looking for a new Chair for their board. Read the spec and see if you're a good fit: docs.google.com/document/d/e...

Democracy Club Chair 2025

docs.google.com

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