September 05, 2025

The Hague, 5 September 2025 – Days before Norway’s parliamentary elections, NGOs monitoring the Facebook and Instagram advertising practices of Norway’s candidates and political parties say that only a small minority of political parties are now using Meta’s most invasive ad targeting features.

“Of the NOK 8,446,589 spent on Meta ads by 13 political parties and their candidates in August, only 2.2% was spent on ads which Meta says used Custom Audience targeting, and 3.7% was spent on ads which used Lookalike Audiences targeting. It’s good to see that most parties and candidates are staying clear of Meta’s most invasive ad targeting features, which almost certainly involve processing personal data without valid consent.” Said Eoin Dubsky, senior campaign manager at Ekō.

Ekō, which campaigns on corporate accountability, partnered with experts at Who Targets Me to make dashboards to monitor Norway’s election ads targeting and spending. 

“Over the past several months monitoring the campaign in Norway, we’ve used a range of transparency tools to keep an eye out for any dodgy campaign advertising practices. Thankfully, most parties and candidates have stayed within acceptable boundaries. High levels of transparency in political campaigning, across ad content, targeting and spending, help ensure good behaviour and make it easier for those who do break outside norms and laws to be held accountable.” said Sam Jeffers, Executive Director of Who Targets Me.

The political parties which apparently did not use invasive targeting at all for their Facebook and instagram ads in August include: Høyre, Kristelig Folkeparti, Partiet Sentrum, Pensjonistpartiet, Rødt, and Senterpartiet. The parties which ran some ads on Meta using invasive Custom Audience targeting and/or Lookalike Audiences include: Arbeiderpartiet, Fremskrittspartiet, INP, Miljøpartiet de Grønne, Sosialistisk Venstreparti, and Venstre. 

Ekō contacted all political parties in early August asking them to refrain from using Meta Custom Audience targeting and Lookalike Audiences. By the week of August 24, when spending picked-up, the only parties still using Meta’s most invasive targeting features were: Arbeiderpartiet and INP.

Eoin added: “Political opinions are a special category of personal data, with extra legal protections under the GDPR. But Meta and Google make it tantalizingly simple for advertisers to stalk people who have visited their website or signed-up for their newsletter, and they even say their AI tools can find people who are like the ones you already know. The parties and politicians who dabbled in the dark arts of invasive ads this summer should know better.” 

Editors Notes:

1. Detailed data on Meta ads targeting is available in dashboards published here and here.
2. Full data, dashboards and visualisations of ad spending on Meta is published here.
3. The Norwegian Data Protection Authority, Datatilsynet’s 2019 report “Digital targeting of political messages in Norway” set out recommendations for the use of microtargeting of political messages, and explained clearly the challenges and risk factors at play when using systems like Meta ads. Datatilsynet’s leadership on GDPR may partly explain why the vast majority of parties using Meta ads this summer stayed clear of the most invasive targeting features.
4. Founded in 2017, WhoTargetsMe is a political ads transparency NGO, specialising in digital advertising. WhoTargetsMe tracks political ad spending, targeting and content from more than 100,000 advertisers from 831 political parties and groups in 53 countries.

Ekō is a global movement of consumers, investors, and workers all around the world, united together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable and just path for our global economy.