On October 19, local elections were held in two small European countries, North Macedonia and Estonia. The campaigns in both countries followed certain rules. A big difference was that in North Macedonia, money could be freely spent on sponsored posts on social media. In Estonia, this is prohibited.

In Estonia, a member of the European Union, about ten days before the elections, the two most influential networks, Facebook and Instagram, stopped publishing sponsored posts from politicians. This was because EU regulations ban political advertising on social media, to prevent manipulation and hidden influence on voters through adverts whose source, funding and target audience are not publicly known.

The social media platforms failed to meet the strict European transparency requirements and decided to simply halt political advertising in all EU member states.

This is not the case in EU-hopeful North Macedonia where, during the October first round of local elections, and during past polls as well, almost anything is allowed on social media in the absence of regulations and monitoring. The runoffs are due on November 2.