Meta bans ByteDance ads on its apps in seven countries, including the US

Meta Platforms has stopped accepting advertisements from ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, on its platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram, in a group of countries, according to reporting by Bloomberg and by Reuters, whose story was carried by The Straits Times. Bloomberg, which according to Reuters was first to report the ban, says Meta started on Thursday to enforce a full block on ads and paid marketing messages that ByteDance places on its platforms. Meta told both news organisations that the ban covers Canada, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and the US. It also reaches third-party advertisers whose campaigns in those countries link to TikTok or to other ByteDance properties. Reuters reports that a Meta spokesperson confirmed the ban on Oct 8 and that it applies immediately.

In an emailed statement quoted by Bloomberg, Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro said: “We don’t have to run ads from a competitor whose goal is to pull people off our apps”. He added: “Declining promotional services to a competitor is a normal business practice across industries”. Meta, he said, would keep competing on product quality and user experience. Reuters carried the same statement, attributed to the company. Neither TikTok nor ByteDance answered requests for comment right away, both outlets say.

The two outlets describe the corporate relationship differently. Bloomberg calls ByteDance the former controlling owner of TikTok and says the Chinese company still runs key parts of TikTok in the US. Reuters calls ByteDance TikTok’s Chinese parent and notes that TikTok now operates in the US as a majority American-owned joint venture, set up through a deal meant to protect US user data and avoid a ban on an app with more than 200 million users in the country. According to Bloomberg, the companies have competed closely for years under an uneven arrangement: TikTok can operate in the US, Meta’s most important market, while Meta cannot operate in China, the most important market for TikTok. Reuters calls the ad ban an escalation of that rivalry and describes TikTok as one of Meta’s strongest competitors for user engagement, creators and ad spending.

The ban follows months of tension over child safety. In August, Meta agreed to settle with US states over harms that social media causes children; Bloomberg puts the settlement at $18 billion, while Reuters describes it as worth up to US$18 billion. The deal requires new protections for minors on Facebook and Instagram, which Reuters says include daily usage limits, restrictions on use at night and stronger steps to keep children away from age-restricted content. Since then, Meta has pressed TikTok and Google’s YouTube to make comparable commitments, arguing that it cannot fix child-safety problems across the industry by itself, according to Bloomberg. The same report says Meta has placed ads in major newspapers, and that its executives have publicly criticised TikTok for not attending a recent event on excessive screen use held by the Office of the Surgeon General and for withdrawing from a meeting on national security with the House Select Committee on China.

TikTok has not commented publicly on Meta’s campaign, both outlets report. According to Bloomberg, TikTok last month introduced several measures that make it harder for users to move from its app to other social platforms, among them removing dedicated Instagram links from profiles, and it turned down ads from Meta that called on TikTok to make similar child-safety concessions. Reuters notes that TikTok’s website says it does not support links that open other social media apps or log users into them, although profiles can still link to the websites of those platforms. In September, TikTok also reached a settlement with Alabama that requires new usage limits and stronger age verification for users in that state, Reuters reports. Bloomberg adds that Meta is not the only consumer tech company to put up barriers against rivals: according to a September report by The Information, OpenAI has told its ad partners that it will turn away ads for image and audio-generation products competing with its own.