Story circulates on social platforms; observers blame EU regulation or Meta overreach
1 Sep 21 10:30 AM · 2d ago · 1 article · 10 posts · 11 comments · 4 sources · development 1 of 1
The Guardian article spread across Hacker News and Mastodon. Commenters debated root causes: some cited Meta's response to EU regulations on political advertising; others argued Meta chose an overly broad ban to avoid compliance costs.
“The EU requires political ads to be labeled and restricts how targeted they can be. There is no EU regulation forcing Meta to ban anything. It's very clearly a Meta problem.”
dgellowMeta Social media platform ownerTeatre Raval Barcelona theatreClara Sanchis Actress, one-woman show performer
The whole story articlespostscomments the bright band is this development · numbered dots are the others · click one to jump
Reported in the same hours no headline names this development itself — these 1 claim were published in its stretch
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first by Mastodon, 2d ago · also HN Frontpage, The Guardian
3 more headlines
- Meta bans ads for Virginia Woolf play in Spain HN Frontpage · 2d ago
- Meta Now Banning Ads That Promote Feminism Mastodon · 2d ago
- Meta bans ads for Virginia Woolf play in Spain because they relate to feminism The Guardian · 2d ago
What people said 24 voices · best of 43 · verbatim
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This theatre work in Barcelona is being banned by Meta for covering Virginia Wolf and/or "social topics". How clear evidence of the censoring of social issues, by the # MassiveManipulationMachine https://www. theguardian.com/technology/202 6/sep/21/meta-ban-virginia-woolf-a-room-of-ones-own-barcelona-teatre-raval # meta # instagram # censorship
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M
Orwell was right www.theguardian.com/technology/2... in @theguardian.com
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I doubt it's the bureaucratic cost (the Transparency part), because Meta can devolve most of it onto advertisers, and with their solution they still have the bureaucratic cost of preventing political ads from being served at all.But there's also the Targeting part, which prohibits using people's personal data for targeting political ads unless…
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There's a possible solution: get out of Meta. I don't know how far censorship must go to make accounts vanish from Big Tech platforms. The status quo is a hard-to-beat beast. People don't have the courage anymore to go against it. https://www. theguardian.com/technology/202 6/sep/21/meta-ban-virginia-woolf-a-room-of-ones-own-barcelona-teatre-raval…
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Everything you need to know about Meta’s priorities in two articles. Feminism bad: www.theguardian.com/technology/2... Nudification good:
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Why do people still bother with meta and others?In my community (outside USA), we use local websites and posted bills. There's no magic to it.>Network effectsIf people decide the cost/effort is too high, that will dissipate.>"Somebody else will"This amounts to a thought-terminating cliche at this point. You are responsible for your own choices…
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Meta is blocking advertisements from Teatre Raval (Barcelona) for Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own": An automated system filters out "social issues" such as # feminism and # civilRights . # Meta 's suggested solution is to "remove keywords". Turning # censorship into self-censorship. https://www. theguardian.com/technology/202…
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Appears to be a response to EU regulation in 2025 banning political/electoral advertising [1]:> Ending Political, Electoral and Social Issue Advertising in the EU in Response to Incoming European RegulationI guess rather than micro-regulate what constitutes "designed to influence an election/referendum, voting behavior, or a legislative/regulatory…
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https://www. theguardian.com/technology/202 6/sep/21/meta-ban-virginia-woolf-a-room-of-ones-own-barcelona-teatre-raval . A one-woman (Clara Sanchis) # play in # Spanish based on Virginia Woolf's # novel , "A Room of One's Own" has been banned from # advertising on # Facebook & # Instagram by # Meta because the work referred to "social topics"…
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The article doesn't mention this, of course, but Meta prohibits "socially sensitive" advertising due to the EU's TTPA law, or "Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising."It imposes substantial bureaucratic compliance burden on advertising platforms to accept ads that deal with political issues.Meta decided that the revenue wasn't worth…
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From # Meta , the company that brought us # CambridgeAnalytica , and algorithms that amplified damaging lies about # climate , and an # InturusiveAI , we see great concern about words flagged as ‘social topics’ by Meta's "automatic system” , so posts with such are filtered out. You know, really threatening words, like # Femisim , # CivilRIghts…
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>Meta decided that the revenue wasn't worth the compliance burden, so they do not accept any political advertising at allObviously, Meta's most important revenue stream comes from scam advertisements, so all other ads are expendable.As far as I know, political ads just must be labelled as such and there are some other small restrictions…
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“Facebook and Instagram filter out ads mentioning ‘social topics’ such as civil rights or feminism.” https://www. theguardian.com/technology/202 6/sep/21/meta-ban-virginia-woolf-a-room-of-ones-own-barcelona-teatre-raval
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Meta has a complicated history with Barcelona.They had a huge moderation centre in the city operated by a company called Telus (which incidentally happened to be in the iconic Glories tower - formerly Torre Agbar which is shaped like a huge vibrator). But one day to the next they fired all the more than 2000 moderators in search of cheaper…
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Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Doucherberg is. He's also in the Epstein files. “any mention of civil rights, feminism or social reform [topics that are central to Woolf’s work] are usually classified as ‘social topics’ by our automatic system” and are filtered out. Meta bans ads for Virginia Woolf play in Spain because they relate to feminism |…
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That’s not true, you’re repeating the exact same wrong statement that has been said multiple times in the comments. The EU requires political ads to be labeled and restricts how targeted they can be. There is no EU regulation forcing Meta to ban anything. It’s very clearly a Meta problem, they are the ones deciding to make a blanket ban on ads for…
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What to do about social media that is out to get us? "Meta bans ads for Virginia Woolf play in Spain because they relate to feminism" https://www. theguardian.com/technology/202 6/sep/21/meta-ban-virginia-woolf-a-room-of-ones-own-barcelona-teatre-raval # meta # facebook # Instagram # censorship @ TheGuardian
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This is a shitty article. It doesn’t mention that the ban on social ads in the EU is due to their anti-free speech rules rather than a Meta specific policy. Meta is in favor of social activism ads in general but restricts them in the EU:
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Ein Theater in Barcelona will auf # instagram und # facebook für ein Stück von Virginia Woolf werben - und wird geblockt. # feminismus wird auf # meta nicht mehr geduldet. Höchste Zeit Suckerberg endlich den Rücken zu kehren. „After reaching out to Meta about why the promo campaign had been stomped out, the company replied that “any mention of…
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> As a theatre we have to publicise our activities … and we have to make use of social media so that people are aware of cultural activitiesDoes the theater have a right to advertise? Is FB obligated to carry their ads?Can FB unilaterally reject their ads, even without giving a reason?It seems only fair they control what happens inside their…
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De la pub pour une pièce de Virginia Woolf sur # Facebook ou # Instagram ? Vous n'y pensez pas, ce serait encourager le # féminisme , et ça, chez # Meta , c'est non. Le Guardian rapporte en effet que la firme a interdit en Espagne des publicités pour une pièce de théâtre consacrée à Virginia Woolf au motif qu’elles font référence au féminisme…
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> To resolve the situation, Meta recommended removing “key words” so that the text doesn’t appear to encourage activism.Move along now, don’t make a racket, don’t do anything to disturb count Zuckerberg and his masters. Go away with your progressive ideas like… Allowing women to express themselves.
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What the actual zuck??? # meta bans ads for Virginia Woolf # play in # Spain because they relate to # feminism . # Theatre told that # Facebook and # Instagram filter out ads mentioning ‘social topics’ such as # civilRights or feminism. https://www. theguardian.com/technology/202…
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Why meta is not fully banned in the EU is beyond me :)I know banning or forcing meta to obey laws in the US is impossible due to bribes (political contributions), but in the EU I would think meta could at the very least be reined in.
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