Instagram

Report March 2025

Submitted
Commitment 5
Relevant Signatories commit to apply a consistent approach across political and issue advertising on their services and to clearly indicate in their advertising policies the extent to which such advertising is permitted or prohibited on their services.
We signed up to the following measures of this commitment
Measure 5.1
In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?
No
If yes, list these implementation measures here
As mentioned in our baseline report, Instagram’s policy requires that any advertiser who wants to run ads that discuss, debate, or advocate for/or against social issues, elections or politics must go through the authorization process and have a "Paid for by" disclaimer run alongside such ads indicating the payor. It is our intention to detect and enforce consistently on these ads to the extent a political advertiser runs an ad without a disclaimer. 

In addition to this, we've established measures where ads related to voting around elections (this includes primary, general, special and run-off elections) are subject to additional prohibitions and could be rejected if in violation of our policies. 
Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?
Yes
If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?
As the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2024/900 on the transparency and targeting of political advertising become applicable, we will update measures under this Chapter as appropriate and to the extent they are not already addressed by Meta’s products and or/policies.
Measure 5.1
Relevant Signatories will apply the labelling, transparency and verification principles (as set out below) across all ads relevant to their Commitments 4 and 5. They will publicise their policy rules or guidelines pertaining to their service's definition(s) of political and/or issue advertising in a publicly available and easily understandable way.
Instagram
QRE 5.1.1
Relevant Signatories will report on their policy rules or guidelines and on their approach towards publicising them.
As mentioned and explained in our baseline report, any advertiser running ads about social issues, elections or politics who is located in or targeting people in designated countries must complete the authorization process required by Meta. 

This applies to any ad that:
  • Is made by, on behalf of or about a candidate for public office, a political figure, a political party, a political action committee or advocates for the outcome of an election to public office
  • Is about any election, referendum or ballot initiative, including "get out the vote" or election information campaigns
  • Is about any social issue in any place where the ad is being run
  • Is regulated as political advertising

Advertisers must include a verified "Paid for by" disclaimer on these ads to show the entity or person responsible for running the ad across Meta technologies. The disclaimer is subject to restrictions. Advertisers must also comply with all applicable laws and regulations, including but not limited to requirements involving; disclaimer, disclosure and ad labelling, blackout periods, foreign interference, spending limits and reporting requirements.

If ads do not include a disclaimer and we determine that the ad content includes content about social issues, elections or politics, it will be disapproved during ad review. If an ad is already running, it can be flagged by automated systems or reported by our community and, if found to be violating our policy by missing a disclaimer, it will be disapproved and added to the Ad Library. From April 2024 the Ad Library in the EU now contains more information about the Advertising or Community Standards that an ad violated (if applicable). We will display this information for disapproved ads for a period of one year after their last impression is delivered and seven years if the ad is about social issues, elections, or politics.

Advertisers also have to disclose whenever a social issue, electoral, or political ad contains a photorealistic image or video, or realistic sounding audio, that was digitally created or altered (more detail about this policy is outlined at the start of this commitment).

We publicly share resources on our advertising standards covering the topics described above, such as ads about social issues, elections or politics in our Transparency Centre.