00:00Are Hungarian Parties Bypassing Meta's Political Advertising Rules?
00:08Disinformation researchers from the HGMO, part of the European Digital Media Observatory,
00:13are warning that Hungary's ruling party, Fidesz, and its proxies
00:17could be bypassing Meta and Google's ban on political advertising,
00:21ahead of elections on 12 April.
00:23Tech giant Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram,
00:26banned all political ads on its EU platforms in October 2025,
00:31citing unworkable requirements and legal uncertainties.
00:34Google also took similar measures in response to the EU's regulation on transparency
00:39and targeting of political advertising.
00:42Unlike regular social media posts, a political advertisement is sponsored
00:46and promotes a party or message to a targeted user group.
00:49Fidesz and entities connected to Fidesz
00:55are still managed to run many ads
01:00that can be clearly characterized as political on Meta's platforms.
01:05It relies on the goodwill of the actors to not to do this
01:11or to declare if an ad is political,
01:14they are getting better.
01:16So now in many cases they remove the ad within a day
01:20or maximum after some days.
01:23Disinformation experts have stated that political ads
01:26have been more common on Meta than Google since the ban.
01:29They have also pointed to flaws in Meta's ad filtering system.
01:32The company does not publicly list how its algorithm and filters work
01:36to flag content that violates political advertising rules.
01:39A Meta spokesperson told us that it is against company policy
01:43for advertisers to run ads about social issues,
01:46elections and politics in the EU.
01:48They added that Meta rejects these ads
01:50once they are made aware of them
01:52and confirm they are violating their rules.
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