Their move comes before Meta’s ban of political adverts comes into force. Over the last month, the party spent spent € 327,630 on Meta websites, or about €80,000 more than in the same period last year, when parties were preparing for elections. Vlaams Belang alone accounts for the overwhelming share of recent Facebook and Instagram political ad spending in the country. “The regulation that will come into application in October does not ban political advertising”. Instead, its focus is on transparency, requiring clear labels on all political ads, disclosure of who paid, how much and for which election or policy debate the ads are linked.