TikTok, Google to ban paid political ads for Eleksyon 2025

Social media platforms TikTok, Google, and Meta agreed to ban paid political advertisements as they pledged to support the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the upcoming polls. 

During the ceremonial signing of the pledge of support, TikTok and Google said they are prohibiting paid political advertisements on their platforms, with the latter disallowing it only during the campaign period.

“We allow political advertisement on Facebook and Instagram for two things: we want to promote transparency and we want to [provide] equal opportunity for all,” said Meta Public Policy Manager Genixon David.

“We want to give voice to smaller parties. Paano ‘yung hindi kaya mag-promote on the ground? At least they can use Facebook, Instagram, and other Meta platforms. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean na wala kaming in place na integrity measures," added David.

"We have comprehensive policies on social issues, elections and political ads. We have a disclaimer policy, authorization process. You can only do political ads if you are in the same country and the best thing is we have ads library,” he explained.

David also said Meta is curbing troll accounts on their platforms by implementing several measures and partnering with various stakeholders.

“It’s important for us to partner with different stakeholders from the government and selected non-government organizations to report to us these fake accounts and investigate the troll accounts,” said David. 

In September, Comelec issued a resolution mandating all candidates, party-lists, and their campaign teams to register their official social media accounts, pages, websites, podcasts, blogs, vlogs, and other online and internet-based campaign platforms until December 13 as part of their bid to regulate and prohibit the misuse of social media for next year’s elections. 

The Task Force sa Katotohanan, Katapatan, at Katarungan (KKK) sa Halalan election task force will review the applications and will endorse the accounts for approval or denial to the Commission en banc. Approved registration will be published on the poll body’s official website as well as social media accounts.

Apart from registering their accounts, all candidates and party-lists are required to issue disclosures for all election and campaign paraphernalia created using artificial intelligence. 

Violating the guidelines would result in a show cause order, requiring the involved candidates or parties to explain why a complaint should not be filed against them. They may also face an election offense complaint. 

—VAL, GMA Integrated News