Meta bans ByteDance ads in the US and six other markets

Meta has banned ads from TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance across the US and several other countries, as reported earlier by Bloomberg [link]. The ban, which went into effect on Thursday, restricts ads and paid marketing messages from ByteDance, along with third-party ads that link to TikTok.

‘We don’t have to run ads from a competitor whose goal is to pull people off our apps.’

“We don’t have to run ads from a competitor whose goal is to pull people off our apps,” Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro said in a statement to The Verge. “Declining promotional services to a competitor is a normal business practice across industries. We will continue to compete on product quality and user experience.”

The move comes just months after Meta agreed to a major child-safety settlement, requiring it to pay $17 billion and add new restrictions for teens. Meta has since called on TikTok and YouTube to impose similar safeguards, including by waging an ad campaign that TikTok reportedly declined to share on its platform. TikTok has also stopped allowing users to include links that “open or log you into other social media apps,” according to its support page.

Though TikTok in the US is now controlled by a joint-venture majority-owned by US-based companies, ByteDance remains a major shareholder. In addition to pulling TikTok ads in the US, the policy will also restrict them in Canada, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Our read: Meta is weaponising its ad ecosystem to blunt a fast-growing rival, turning a standard industry practice—refusing promotional services to competitors—into a high-visibility tactic that could reshape cross-platform advertising dynamics.