Lady Gaga gives EU a migraine (medication)
The singer’s case is the latest example of the EU struggles to apply its digital laws.
Lady Gaga posted a Pfizer-backed video to her Instagram platform, stating in the caption that it was “for US audiences only.” | Piero Cruciatti/AFP via Getty Images
U.S. singer Lady Gaga posted a controversial Pfizer-sponsored ad for a migraine drug to her Instagram account Monday, raising questions over the enforcement of the EU’s digital rulebooks.
Advertising prescription meds to the general public is illegal across the EU, and legal in the U.S. But making — and enforcing — this distinction online is another matter.
The singer, who posted the Pfizer-backed video to her 56.5 million-follower-strong Instagram platform, stated in the caption that it is “for US audiences only” — though it is potentially viewable to millions of Europeans.
Meta, Instagram’s parent company, “has to delete the illegal ad immediately and take measures to prevent such breaches,” Alexandra Geese, the Greens’ point person on platforms, told Playbook when shown the ad. “The platforms will only abide by our rules if we show our political will to enforce them.”
Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager told POLITICO that the EU’s new digital laws, the DSA and DMA, only allow it to intervene after people flag illegal content — meaning after millions of users have potentially already seen it.
“If users find illegal content online it is important that they report this to the platforms,” Vestager said. “If then content is not removed, the Commission can take action and pursue the case. The DSA and the DMA are only as strong as we can collectively make them. And we count on the community to help us enforce.”
“At first sight this looks indeed like an infringement … it should have been geofenced to the U.S. We will follow up including via the ad repository,” an EU case officer who enforces the EU’s digital rules told a Commission official in an email on Tuesday, after POLITICO asked the official about the ad on Monday.
Geese said she had also flagged the ad as illegal, after POLITICO contacted her. But by early Wednesday morning, it was still viewable in Belgium. Meta did not reply to a request for comment in time for publication.
