Meta started blocking all ads from ByteDance on Facebook, Instagram and its other apps in the US, Canada, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam. The ban also covers outside advertisers whose campaigns link to TikTok or other ByteDance apps, according to Bloomberg.
Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro said in an e-mailed statement:
“We don’t have to run ads from a competitor whose goal is to pull people off our apps. Declining promotional services to a competitor is a normal business practice across industries. We will continue to compete on product quality and user experience.”
Where the fuck was this attitude eight years ago?
TikTok undoubtedly bought their way into the US market, and it was a brilliant strategy. For several years, especially in the early days, TikTok was one of both Meta and YouTube’s biggest advertisers, and it felt like every 5-second ad before a YouTube video was a TikTok video. The ingenious part of TikTok’s campaign was that they didn’t publish “ads for TikTok” on Meta and YouTube, directly promoting the platform and telling people to visit. They simply promoted eye-catching viral TikTok videos that ended with the TikTok logo, which made viewers interested.
Imagine where TikTok would be today if Meta and YouTube hadn’t provided them with access to their platforms in the first place. Could they have done that? Is that legal? Is what Meta doing now legal? My guess is that we’ll find out in court at some point.
Btw – you’ll notice that no EU countries made the list, which likely isn’t a coincidence.
The EU’s Digital Markets Act designates Facebook, Instagram, and Meta’s ad business as “gatekeeper” services, which requires them to give businesses fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory access to their platforms, and a blanket ban on a competitor’s ads would almost certainly break that rule. It seems Meta’s “normal business practice” only applies where regulators won’t call it something else.
Funny enough, Google may be dealing with a similar issue very soon.
It was revealed last week that OpenAI is buying Google search ads on Christmas gift keywords to steer holiday shoppers from Google over to ChatGPT, according to a LinkedIn post by Michael Scott, head of organic search at Clicky. A screenshot Scott shared shows a sponsored ChatGPT result under a LEGO ad for the search “Christmas gifts for dads,” headlined “Gift Search with ChatGPT | Gifts for Mom, Dad, and More.” The ad positions ChatGPT as a way to find gift ideas without opening endless tabs, with links to browse by budget, find deals and compare products.
OpenAI hasn’t publicly announced the campaign or said how much it is spending on Google ads. It’s interesting though that they’re using the TikTok playbook to drive traffic from competitors. I’m curious if / how Google will respond.
