Policy

  • The AfD are the biggest winners of the EU’s political ad regulation

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    Online political advertising didn’t decide the Saxony-Anhalt election. But its disappearance probably helped shape the result. In October 2025, the European Union’s “Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising” regulation (TTPA) came into force. At the same time, Meta and Google left the EU political advertising market, arguing the new law made things too operationally complex. …

  • Better regulation for digital political advertising in the UK

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    The overall goal of political advertising reform and regulation in the UK should be to foster a transparent, trustworthy, diverse, and competitive political advertising market. Digital political advertising carries well-documented risks — opaque funding, misuse of personal data, and the amplification of mis- and disinformation. It also offers clear benefits: campaigns can reach voters directly,…

  • Restoring the Integrity of UK Election Campaigns

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    Public confidence in the fairness of UK elections is being eroded by opaque money flows, globalised digital campaigning, and outdated regulatory frameworks. Without decisive, creative Government reform, elections will continue to be legally compliant but publicly distrusted – undermining democratic legitimacy.  There are four challenge areas to overcome: 1/ Opaque funding: Voters cannot easily see…

  • Changes to Trends (Nov 2025)

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    Over the last few months, we’ve been working on a major update to our Trends political advertising tracker. From today, those changes are live. Here’s an explanation of what we’ve done: 1. Expanded data access now requires a free login Trends tracks activity by over 125,000 political advertisers, across more than 1,000 political parties and…

  • Meta and Google’s Ad Ban Upends Political Campaigning in Europe

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    Originally published in Tech Policy Press, 22nd Oct 2025 The collective decision by Meta and Google to ban political, social and issue-based ads in the European Union, citing the European Union’s new Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) regulation, is a seismic shift that will fundamentally reshape political campaigning across the continent. Some will…

  • Does US ownership of TikTok matter for political ads and campaigns?

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    TikTok is about to be split in two. The largest social media market in the world, the US, will soon forcibly acquire the company’s American operations and put it in the hands of a conglomerate of tech and media billionaires. They will be able to run it however they choose. How might the two TikToks…