I mean, I don't like Meta at all, but what do you expect? If you want to run a full-page in the New York Times that criticizes the New York Times, they're going to refuse to run it as well. Private companies generally don't publish things that run counter to their interests.
It would certainly be interesting if we wanted legislation to force private companies who provide paid ad space to publish ads that paid the most regardless of the content, but then that opens up a whole other can of worms. What if the ad offering the most money is racist and horrible, or disgustingly obscene? At that point you start needing the government to decide what is allowed to be banned and what isn't, and then it's meddling in speech which is prohibited by the first amendment.
So this just seems like an obvious non-story to me. Of course Meta is removing these ads, because pretty much any advertising platform would do the same about ads that criticized it.
> New York Times that criticizes the New York Times,
This has happened.
> the government to decide what is allowed to be banned and what isn't,
This is a civil lawsuit where people are trying to a) prove they were harmed and b) be compensated for that harm. The government is just the referee.
> Meta is removing these ads, because pretty much any advertising platform would do the same about ads that criticized it.
Which was not very smart because the next step will be a court order requiring them to put a banner on ever page with a link to sign up to join the lawsuit - for free.
> This has happened.
Source?
Online stores don't remove 1-star reviews of their products from their store. Do they ?
Yes, they very frequently do.
Taking down "bad" Google reviews is an entire industry these days [1].
And of course there are scammers on all sides - not just legitimately bad stores trying to whitewash their online presence, but also entire scammer rackets that extort legitimately good stores by flooding them with BS reviews [2].
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-shady-companies-remove-ba...
[2] https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/inside-the-extorti...
This may sound reasonable but isn't at all how newspapers are run. You can absolutely buy an ad in the New York Times criticizing the New York Times. Within reason of course, as you said the are private entities allowed to take on any customers they want, but in general newspapers hold journalistic integrity as an ideal and will allow most things as long as they aren't defamatory, unethical or downright illegal.
The ad sellers and the journalists are normally separate and will not interfer much with one another's work. It also helps that they never say no to money. I don't know about the New York Times specifically but similar things have happened many times in other newspapers, and there is such a thing as a paid editorial. Those are usually clearly marked as such, but it's basically the same thing.
(However, there may be other reasons why you might want to go with a competitor instead, and not pay the newspaper you hate $100k.)