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State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending
- vinay427 8y agoThe "failure to disclose" part in the article's title on the source website seems very relevant to me. The title on HN implies that the state is suing the companies solely because of their political ad spending. The source title: "Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose political ad spending"
- confiscate 8y agoupdated the title. Thanks
- jfim 8y agoOut of curiosity, how does political ad spending work in the US? It seems that TFA hints at the fact that political ad funding is public and requires proper recordkeeping. Does that mean that when someone sees "This message paid by friends of Mr. Foo", one can write to the TV/radio/website and request more information about "friends of Mr. Foo?"
- CobrastanJorji 8y agoKinda sorta. Political campaigns and some large organizations are required to report their spending and donations, and, as a separate thing, advertisements may be required to identify themselves. The State of Washington, though, as well as the City of Seattle, have somewhat unusual laws that requires substantially more. They have a law on the books aimed at TV channels and newspapers requiring that all political ad spending be disclosed in full by the companies that sold the advertising. Like, totally. And the records basically need to be available for immediate public inspection. So in theory you should be able to walk into a newspapers office and ask to see the big book of political advertising purchases and see exactly who spent how much and exactly what they bought. What does that mean for companies like Facebook? It's hard to say! I live in Seattle and there's been a fun bit of ongoing drama when a reporter for our local paper, "The Stranger," thought to try it out and simply walked into the Facebook and Google offices and asked to see the books. It's been a fun bit of local political news drama for a while now, and it's just escalated a bit. Here's a link to all of the recent pieces by the original investigator of all this: https://www.thestranger.com/authors/12168/eli-sanders https://www.thestranger.com/authors/12168/eli-sanders Here's Seattle's law: https://library.municode.com/WA/seattle/codes/municipal_code?nodeId=TIT2EL_CH2.04ELCACO_SUBCHAPTER_IIICADI_2.04.280COADDURE https://library.municode.com/WA/seattle/codes/municipal_code... The important bit that everybody's gonna fight over what it means is this: "Each commercial advertiser that has accepted or provided political advertising during the election campaign shall maintain open for public inspection...The exact nature and extent of the advertising services rendered."
- kolpa 8y agoHow does an ad seller know whether an ad buy is "political"? Requiring the seller to keep records seems reasonable, but requiring the seller to make records, does not. That is, an ad seller ought not be expected to know which incoming buys are political. That ought to be the responsibility of the buyer/"creatives" to declare.
- hudibras 8y agoBecause the buyers are all registered political entities: candidates' campaigns, political action committees, etc. It's illegal for a "regular person" to go buy political ads and not register with the state.
- CamperBob2 8y agoThat sounds like an outrageous First Amendment violation.
- hudibras 8y agoNo one is stopping that person from buying anything; they just have to register first.
- chrismcb 8y agoSo if you don't register, your free speech is abridged. The first amendment doesn't say you have to register before you are given free speech.
- hudibras 8y agoI don't know what to tell you, other than that the Public Disclosure Commission and the Fair Campaign Practices Act have been Washington state law since the early 1970s.
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- IronWolve 8y agoI thought campaign contributions could run afoul of Sarbanes Oxley regulation rules, and other incorrect accounting of donations, if they cant even track what they gave, how can they certify the books.
- forapurpose 8y ago> if they cant even track what they gave The article is about what they were paid, as advertising platforms, not what they gave.
- ggm 8y agoHow many of the funders breached federal or state mandated limits on spending? I ask, because in the "brexit" circumstances it becomes clear the "leave" campaign eggregiously breached the declared public advertising spending limits through use of indirect/third-party funding channels who did placement in social media.
- jdavis703 8y agoThis isn't strictly illegal in the U.S. due to the Citizens United decision. Because of free speech blah blah blah I can spend an unlimited amount of money for a cause or canidate as long as I don't coordinate with that campaign.
- wpietri 8y agoAnd apparently the definition of "coordinate" is quite flexible. E.g.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/here-are-the-secret-ways-super-pacs-and-campaigns-can-work-together/2015/07/06/bda78210-1539-11e5-89f3-61410da94eb1_story.html?noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/here-are-the-secret-... In practice, I'm not sure sufficiently rich people face any practical limits in influencing elections.
- dyren 8y agoIt has been repeatedly shown that the Sufficiently Rich face virtually no limits, restrictions, penalties, etc.
- rhino369 8y agoThey don’t because of the first amendment. A person is allowed to influence the election as much as they can. There is no difference between HBO broadcasting Bill Maher into millions of home and Bill Maher paying for YouTube ads. You can’t even differentiate between people and corporations. Because otherwise the government could tell the New York Times to stop writing articles against trump. After all they are a for profit corporation. It’s a tough spot.
- sqdbps 8y ago... in the latest chapter of scapegoating internet firms for Trump's election.
- lewisinc 8y agoMmm, this is Washington State, not DC
- sqdbps 8y agoThe scapegoating is being done by the left.
- abugheratwork 8y ago"The left" is a hand.
- sqdbps 8y agoNot exclusively.
- stochastic_monk 8y agoThese companies were in obvious violation of the law. These proceedings do not require responsibility for the election to be valid.
- ctrl-j 8y agoPolitical sports-teaming doesn't belong on hacker news.
- philwelch 8y agoWashington AG Bob Ferguson has a history of filing activist lawsuits.
- kolpa 8y agoIs an Attorney General enforcing the laws of the state "activist"?
- dillondoyle 8y agoThe numbers reported strike me as very small (I buy digital political ads for work). Especially 1.1mm in 2016 for FB statewide strikes me as tiny! Looking at official candidate committees for Senate+Congress only in '16 is close-ish to 30mm raised (1). Plus PACs, 501c3/4s, any Presidential spend on top, I would guess double that at least. Even if 50mm total spend that would be only 2% spent on FB which seems really low, based on a low spend estimate. I wonder where they got these numbers... [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/races/election?cycle=2016&id=WA https://www.opensecrets.org/races/election?cycle=2016&id=WA
- myWindoonn 8y agoDoesn't matter; every penny must be accounted for when it comes to political spending. Failure to account is literally the corruption which is rotting the foundation of our democracy. I'm personally applauding Washington for taking this bold move, as both Facebook and Google have Seattle-area offices which they will likely not want to close. Washington and Oregon tend to act alike, and both Facebook and Google have not just offices in Oregon, but datacenters too, with the Prineville and The Dalles facilities respectively. Edit: You want pseudonymous/anonymous/corporate speech in politics? Form a PAC and donate to it. That's what PACs are for. Might as well stand for "Pseudonyms, Anons, and Corporations", am I right?
- mobilefriendly 8y agoAnonymous speech (for individuals) is also central to a functioning republic democracy.
- throwaway2048 8y agoi see nothing noble about enabling anonymous fronts for billionares to push stuff like fake grassroots movements.
- sien 8y agoHow about forcing lists of donors to, say, a labor activist being used to create 'no hire' lists? What about anyone funding a tenancy advocacy organisation being added to a 'do not rent to this person' list? What about people funding pro-choice organisations being added to 'unchristian lists' so christian employers check if their beliefs coincide. The potential abuses of forcing disclosure for all donations are considerable.
- jdhdhtt 8y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeZZr_p6vB8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeZZr_p6vB8
- edbaskerville 8y agoCould you change the title to say "State of Washington"?
- arwineap 8y agoWouldn't the short of Washington DC simply be DC?
- tajen 8y agoIsn’t the state of Washington in Seattle? which means something else entirely.
- itchyjunk 8y agoSeattle[0] is the city in the state called Washington[1]. I was under the impression that when just 'Washington' was used, it refereed to the state. But looks like even Washington, D.C (formally District of Colombia [2]) is called just Washington[2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_(state) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_(state)
- craftyguy 8y agoDirect Current? Joking aside, ambiguous 2 letter acronyms is not really a good way to reference a US city, since there are folks here who are not in the US.
- andrewflnr 8y agoSometimes, other times no. Referring to the seat of the US government as "Washington" is apparently just too much fun for journalist types, so an unqualified reference to it is often ambiguous in practice.
- almostApatriot1 8y agoyes, or even "The District"
- apeace 8y agoOff-topic: > Specifically, “documents and books of account” must be made available for public inspection during the campaign and for three years following; these must detail the candidate, name of advertiser, address, cost and method of payment and description services rendered. Description services rendered? Did you mean description of services rendered? Please, let me know if I'm missing something here. These seems like yet another grammatical error in Techcrunch. Every time I click on a Techcrunch article it is full of grammatical errors and misspellings. Are they full of factual errors, too? Makes me wonder. If a major online publication like this can't fix missing words, what are their stories worth? When I read Techcrunch I assume it's no better than a grocery store tabloid.
- sdenton4 8y agoWith gdpr, I came to realize that (for better or worse) the internet is transitioning from a place outside of the law to a place subject to the union of all laws.
- nitwit005 8y agoThis sort of issue has cropped up since there started being commercial activity on the internet. If you try to start a company like ebay, you'll learn that means complying with every relevant local, national, and international law, for any item it's possible to sell, and updating the rules every times they change.
- candiodari 8y agoWhat do you mean ? Ebay isn't even subject to normal sales tax in Australia yet (will happen this July). I mean it's changing, but these multinational companies have "bypassed" (ignored and gotten away with) normal sale laws for various reasons in so many ways.
- eru 8y agoFor a company a large part of being subject to laws is to hire lawyers to help you navigate them. Similar to physical laws and hiring engineers.
- candiodari 8y agoNot in this case. 99% of what you find on ebay should be subject to import compliance rules, import tax, and sales tax for the place where the buyer lives. Same for Amazon. They are slowly giving in on 1 of those 3. Ebay and Amazon have always claimed that any transaction happening on their systems was akin to selling your grasmower to your neighbor. Because, as far as they knew, that was what's happening. They only introduce buyer and seller and have nothing to do with what happens next. Perhaps this was a semi-reasonable assumption before ebay got into accepting payments (and created several billion dollar companies with that act). For Amazon, I don't understand how this was ever accepted, but I'd bet a great deal of money Jeff Bezos somehow had assurances this interpretation was going to stick. It would have been very, very painful otherwise. I'm pretty sure no lawyer in 1995 (or now) would have advised you in writing that this is a reasonable approach to take.
- smsm42 8y agoWait, so if I want to publish a political ad online, which can be seen in Washington, I have to publish my address so any wacko can come and threaten myself and my family? I guess somehow it makes sense to people in Washington but certainly doesn't make sense to me.
- oasisbob 8y agoDisclosure requirements for contributions to federal campaigns are similar. Most states have voter rolls which are covered by open record laws, will release personal information on all registered voters. Address included. I'm not sure why this law strikes you as so crazy. Most individuals aren't making independent political ad buys.
- smsm42 8y ago> Disclosure requirements for contributions to federal campaigns are similar. I have to publish my address and who I donated to, for every crazy loon out there to see and for any employer or other person who could hurt me to retaliate if I support a wrong one? That sounds insane. No wonder people like to contribute to PACs. With requirements like that, it's plain crazy not to use an intermediary. > Most states have voter rolls which are covered by open record laws Voter rolls just says the person has right to vote, not who he or she is voting for, right? > I'm not sure why this law strikes you as so crazy. Complete lack of privacy in the matter which is proven to expose people to harassment, retaliation, threats and violence. > Most individuals aren't making independent political ad buys. Probably because it's much safer to do it through an intermediary, I assume.
- Taniwha 8y agoHere in New Zealand you have to actually put your name on the ad - "this ad authorized by -----" - even party ads have to have the name of some local party functionary on them I think that if you have a political opinion that's so unpopular you're embarrassed to put your name on it there's probably something wrong with it. Mind you here in NZ we don't let our wackos have guns.
- asfasgasg 8y ago> At least some of the many payments making up these results are not properly documented, and from the looks of it, this could amount to willful negligence. If a company is operating in a state and taking millions for political ads, it really can’t be unaware of that state’s disclosure laws. Seems to be overstating the case just a tad. Less than a million, in total, for Google at least. That's two or three engineer-years. It's substantially below the noise threshold. I mean, Google should comply, yes. No question. But I don't really see any evidence that the failure to comply was willful. It looks like instead the requests of the two gentlemen cited in the suit simply didn't make it to the right people.
- sverige 8y agoOTOH, if Google did not willfully fail to follow the law, does that mean they are simply incompetent? Local TV stations find a way to pay attention enough to comply, but Google can't?
- beaner 8y agoYes, that makes sense to me. Local businesses are much more likely to know the local laws. Google is everywhere, covering thousands of local places. It'd be hard to know all the different regulation.
- untog 8y agoGoogle is also an order of magnitude bigger than a local TV station. They have no excuse.
- CobrastanJorji 8y agoOn the other hand, a local TV station only needs to know and comply with the election laws of their own city. Google needs to know and comply with the local laws of every city in the world.
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- driverdan 8y agoEli Sanders, the journalist who sparked these lawsuits, wrote a great article with far more details here: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/06/04/26941316/facebook-and-google-sued-by-washington-attorney-general-for-failing-to-disclose-political-ads https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/06/04/26941316/faceboo...
- samdoidge 8y agoThe title should be updated to include 'political' before 'spending'.
- AzzieElbab 8y agoDoesn't seem like a very good investment on their part
- tripzilch 8y ago> The case likely will not result in significant monetary penalties for the companies in question; even if fines and damages totaled tens of millions it would be a drop in the bucket for the tech giants. > But deliberately skirting laws governing political spending and public disclosure is rather a bad look for companies under especial scrutiny for systematic dishonesty — primarily Facebook. So they'll lose face, but not the books ... Seriously though, come on. I'm getting increasingly cynical about this. This is business as usual in the US. They're not going to self-regulate themselves a conscience.