Meta bans TikTok ads from its platforms in tit-for-tat row

Meta confirmed that it has banned ads from rival platform TikTok, saying that "declining promotional services to a competitor is a normal business practice," Bloomberg reported. The news follows TikTok's own ban of Instagram and Facebook profile links and Meta ads pressuring TikTok and other social media sites to follow its lead with safety features for minors.

On Thursday, Meta placed a complete ban on ads and marketing from TikTok's US minority owner, China's ByteDance. The ban is in effect in the US, Canada, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam, the company said. It also applies to third-party advertisers running TikTok-linked campaigns in those countries. "We don't have to run ads from a competitor whose goal is to pull people off our apps," Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro told Bloomberg .

In August, Meta agreed to an $18 billion settlement with US states that also forced it to implement child safety features on Facebook and Instagram. Legal experts said that could pressure the company's competitors, particularly TikTok and YouTube, to reshape their apps as well. This summer, the European regulators wrote that TikTok hasn't done enough to ensure minors' safety and that it could impose a fine of up to six percent of the platform's annual revenue.

That puts TikTok and YouTube on the back foot, with both government regulators and Meta itself pressuring them to follow Meta's child safety lead. Meta recently placed ads in major newspapers demanding similar moves from its rivals, while calling out TikTok for failing to show at several US government meetings around screen time and child safety. TikTok, now owned by a consortium of US and UAE investors (including Larry Ellison's Oracle), has so far said very little on the issue.