Meta stops running ads that promote TikTok in the US and six other countries

Meta has stopped running ads from ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, on its apps, and the ban extends to third-party advertisers whose campaigns link to TikTok or other ByteDance properties. It took effect on October 8, 2026 in the United States, Canada, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam.

What changed

Bloomberg first reported the ban; Reuters and others then carried Meta's statement: "We don't have to run ads from a competitor whose goal is to pull people off our apps." In the listed countries, Facebook and Instagram ads that send people to TikTok are no longer accepted, whether ByteDance or someone else runs them.

For a creator or a brand, that covers the obvious cases: a "follow us on TikTok" campaign, an ad pointing to a TikTok profile or video, and ads for TikTok Shop listings.

Who it affects

• Advertisers in the seven countries who use Facebook or Instagram ads to grow a TikTok account or sell through TikTok Shop.

• Not covered by the reports: organic posts. The ban, as reported, concerns ads; nothing in it says your own non-paid posts mentioning TikTok are affected.

• Outside the seven countries, the reports describe no change.

What to do

• Point ads to a page you own, not to TikTok — a landing page or a link-in-bio page that lists all your channels, TikTok included. Meta's statement is about ads that pull people off its apps, so check your new landing page against Meta's ad policies before you relaunch.

• Grow TikTok with TikTok-native content. Post consistently on TikTok itself; the cross-promotion now has to come from organic content, not paid Meta reach.

• Re-check running campaigns. Campaigns in the listed countries that link to TikTok may stop delivering.

Posting the same video on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook as organic content isn't affected by any of this; how to do that without three uploads is in our guide to posting one video to Shorts, TikTok and Reels.

Source and updates

Based on Reuters' report of October 9, 2026, which cites Bloomberg's original report and Meta's spokesperson; read on October 17, 2026. Meta hasn't published a separate policy page on the ban that we could find. We'll update this article if it does, or if the list of countries changes.