Political advertising

The topic of political advertising has not only been on everyone's lips because of the 2024 European elections, but has also been occupying politics, society and legal and communication science for some time against the backdrop of the possibilities of influencing democratic legitimisation processes. At the latest since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the data of millions of Facebook users was misused to influence the 2016 US elections, the topic has also been on the EU's legislative agenda. While the strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation 2022 and the Digital Services Act in its rules for very large online platforms and search engines address one part of the risks, the Regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising now specifically addresses the media side of democratic competition in a broad and cross-sectoral approach. It creates harmonised transparency and corresponding due diligence obligations for the provision of political advertising services and, in the area of targeting, primarily contains specifics on data protection. At the centre of this is a complex definition of political advertising, which is not intended to cover political opinions and editorial content. This panel will discuss what the rules applicable from October 2025 mean for the media sector and how they relate to the national rules for political advertising.