Spain Suspends Meta’s Planned Election Tools; TikTok Courts Publishers; Women Aged 44+ Feel Underrepresented by Advertising

by Aimee Newell Tarín on 3rd Jun 2024 in News

On today’s news digest: Spain Suspends Meta’s Planned Election Tools; TikTok Courts Publishers; Women Aged 44+ Feel Underrepresented by Advertising

Spain’s data watchdog (AEPD) has ordered the suspension of two of Meta’s planned election tools for Instagram and Facebook, which are due to be rolled out for the upcoming European election in early June. According to the watchdog, the tools – Election Day Information and Voter Information Unit – would potentially violate Spain’s data protection regulation. In a statement, the watchdog maintains that the data processing “would be contrary to Spanish data protection regulation and would, at the very least, breach the data protection principles of lawfulness, data minimisation and limitation of the retention period.” It also highlighted that Meta had not justified the need to store the data after the election.

While judgement day nears for TikTok in Washington DC’s Appeals Court, it’s currently using its time to court publishers through monetisation opportunities. The video platform is developing a team dedicated to publisher monetisation operations, with the aim of convincing major news publishers to create content for the app. Harish Sarma, formerly TikTok’s global head of sports and gaming, will lead the operation. There are an increasing number of opportunities for publishers on TikTok, with the average length of videos on the platform on a steady increase.

Turning our attention to representation in the ad industry, almost half (45%) of women over the age of 44 feel underrepresented by advertising, agreeing that it makes them feel “society expects them to vanish from public life as they get older”. When it comes to spending power, middle-aged women are in the driving seat, explains a report by OMD which explores advertising in relation to “Middle Age Women”. Women aged 50+ are some of the biggest spenders across different categories; they drive purchase decisions behind 91% of homes, for example.