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This is not entirely true (disclaimer: living in Germany, with a German-based business).

You can embed social media.

What you can't do is embed a social media post without disclosing in the cookie notice (that must be approved beforehand) what will happen to the user due to you doing it.

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But isn’t the embedded element already setting cookies before the user can reject the cookie notice?

Only if you render the embed before the user accepts which is under the control of the developer/site, even though many don't bother to do that correctly I bet.

I believe the ePrivacy Directive (aka stupid "cookie law") merely required disclosure of cookies but didn't ask for opt-in, so disclosing that you're setting cookies might've been enough.

The GDPR absolutely requires opt-in before setting cookies (or collecting user data in other ways, it isn't specific to cookies even) so the embeds would be in breach. Whether it's the responsibility of the parent website or the embedded element to ask for consent is another matter.

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