Ex-post analysis of the rapid response system during Malta’s 2026 general elections
Over a 21-day window around Malta’s snap 30 May 2026 general election, MedDMO’s Maltese team reported 296 URLs to Meta and Google, the majority unlabelled political advertising in breach of EU ad-transparency rules and the platforms’ own terms. Platforms mostly acted within one to two days, but enforcement was inconsistent: on Google, removed unlabelled ads were sometimes almost immediately republished by the same advertisers, and on Meta a coordinated inauthentic network of pages/profiles was taken down, partially reinstated on election day, then removed again.
Executive summary
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Malta’s snap election, called 27 April 2026 for a 30 May vote, gave MedDMO’s Maltese team its first live test of the Code of Practice’s Rapid Response System, which it joined at short notice after seeing Cyprus’s hub use the same mechanism. Over three weeks the team flagged 296 URLs, mostly undisclosed political ads, to Meta and Google via the EDMO Task Force for Elections and Crisis-related Disinformation. Platform responses were mostly fast but enforcement proved leaky: Google-removed ads reappeared from the same advertisers, and a Meta-linked inauthentic network briefly resurfaced on election day itself.
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