Meta has banned political ads on Facebook and Instagram from 6 October (at least in theory). In the final stretch before the new policy came into effect, political actors spent more money on ads in Hungary than in Germany, which has eight times the population, or in Czechia, where parliamentary elections were held in early October.

At 6 p.m. Central European Time on 6 October, Meta stopped publishing ads dealing with social issues, elections or politics in the European Union.

Meta announced already in July that, starting in October, it would no longer allow political ads on its platforms, Facebook and Instagram. The company justified the decision by claiming they would not be able to comply with new EU legislation on the transparency of political advertising, coming into force on 10 October, so – just like Google – they would rather abandon such advertising altogether.

Political Capital's weekly updated graph clearly shows how Hungarian political actors – led by Fidesz, Viktor Orbán’s governing party and organizations linked to the government – brutally increased their spending on political advertising on Meta's platforms as the early October deadline approached.

We have previously reported on Lakmusz how the end of political advertising on the largest social media platforms could hurt Fidesz.

Meta's European advertising data allows for comparing how much money was spent on political ads in EU member states.

In the three months before 30 September, in proportion to the population, advertisers spent the most money on political ads on Meta's platforms in Hungary. And if we look at the last month or the last week before the ban on political advertisement, Hungary is on top also in absolute terms.

Orbán and the “National Resistance” at the forefront

Meta's ad archive allows users to query the amount spent on political advertising in each country for 90-, 30- and 7-day intervals, broken down by advertiser.

We downloaded data for the periods ending with 30 September.

During the 90-day period, the most money was spent on Viktor Orbán's page – EUR 1,08 million, or roughly one-fifth of the total spending in Hungary.

In second place was the National Resistance Movement, an organization closely connected to the government-aligned influencer network Megafon, with a total spending of EUR 941k. As reported by Lakmusz, the company behind the Movement was recently purchased by István Kovács, owner of Megafon.

The “Fighters' Club” page organizing the online activists of Fidesz came in third place. The top eight places on the TOP 10 list are occupied by pro-government actors, with the opposition party Democratic Coalition’s and its leader Klára Dobrev's pages coming in 9th and 10th place, respectively.

Between 3 July and 30 September, the opposition Tisza Party of Péter Magyar spent EUR 29k on advertising on Meta's platforms, making it only the 33rd largest advertiser in Hungary.

The TOP 10 was similar in the month of September, although Orbán's lead was more pronounced, while Democratic Coalition and Dobrev moved up to 6th and 7th place.

The overall picture did not change much in the last week before 30 September, with Orbán's page still receiving the most spending and Democratic Coalition moving up to fourth place.

On top of Europe

We retrieved data for the other 26 EU member states from Meta's advertising database. For comparability, we converted the spending of non-euro member states to euros using the European Central Bank's average exchange rates for the 90-, 30- and 7-day periods mentioned above.

Hungary’s EUR 5.5 million spending in 90 days was only slightly less than what advertisers spent on political ads in Germany, a country with a population eight times bigger than Hungary's.

In proportion to population, Hungarian advertisers spent the most on political advertising on Meta platforms. EUR 5.5 million is about four times as much as the amount spent on political advertising in Czechia, which is similar in size to Hungary, even though parliamentary elections were held in Czechia in early October.

If we examine the shorter intervals, the total amount of political spending in Hungary becomes the highest in the EU also in absolute terms.

Between 24 September and 30 September, EUR 200k was spent on Viktor Orbán’s page alone. This would be the 11th highest expenditure among countries. In other words, there are 17 EU countries where all advertisers combined did not spend as much on political advertising in the last week of September as Fidesz spent in Hungary just to promote Orbán's page .

(Cover illustration: Bence Kiss)