
State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending - confiscate
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/05/washington-sues-facebook-and-google-over-failure-to-disclose-political-ad-spending/
======
dillondoyle
The 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
Doesn'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
Anonymous speech (for individuals) is also central to a functioning republic
democracy.

~~~
confounded
But relatedly, money being treated as speech is antithetical to a functioning
republic democracy.

~~~
marcoperaza
So how do you get your message out without spending money? Do you only
consider it freedom of speech if no one has a chance of hearing you? Spending
money is how people with novel ideas expose it to more people and can hope to
compete against established ideas that don’t need to be marketed.

~~~
awakeasleep
Stopping the treatment of money as speech doesn't ban money, it just means it
has to be spent transparently.

~~~
marcoperaza
Actually that’s exactly what it would do. _Citizens United_ was about the
government banning a film because it was illegal campaign spending.

~~~
newfoundglory
No, banning money would make campaign spending illegal for any reason.

~~~
marcoperaza
So you’re fine with the government telling you it’s illegal to distribute a
movie?

~~~
newfoundglory
What do my feelings have to do with what the current law says?

~~~
marcoperaza
Presumably, you’re telling me what you think the law _ought_ to be. As far as
the law is currently concerned, spending is protected as speech.

~~~
newfoundglory
I did mean "used to be", you're right. I was saying that pre Citizens United
money was not banned, it was regulated. There is a huge difference.

------
asfasgasg
_> 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
OTOH, 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
Yes, 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.

~~~
mulmen
So what? They’re still responsible for complying with the law.

~~~
anameaname
Following the law isn't black and white. I'm sure each of us as individuals
broke the several times today without even knowing it.

~~~
dyeje
Yea, but each of us aren't multibillion dollar corporations significantly
influencing governments.

------
sdenton4
With 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.

~~~
fouc
The Internet transitioned from a place that felt very 'underground' in the
80s/90s to this advertiser/data driven retain-every-piece-of-user-data world.
It has moved from something that was sort of decentralized to something that
is very centralized, particularly in the hands of large companies, so now we
need laws to constrain those companies.

~~~
kodablah
While that may be true in theory, in practice your last sentence should say
"constrain all companies".

------
jfim
Out 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
Kinda 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...](https://library.municode.com/WA/seattle/codes/municipal_code?nodeId=TIT2EL_CH2.04ELCACO_SUBCHAPTER_IIICADI_2.04.280COADDURE)

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
How 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
Because 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
That sounds like an outrageous First Amendment violation.

~~~
hudibras
No one is stopping that person from buying anything; they just have to
register first.

~~~
chrismcb
So 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
I 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.

~~~
CamperBob2
I don't know what to tell you either, but the authors of the First Amendment
had some pretty strong ideas on the subject about 200 years before that. They
didn't seem quite as ambivalent on the subject as most people here. I wonder
why?

~~~
hudibras
Is a law prohibiting me from secretly giving an elected official a briefcase
full of one million dollars constitutional? If so, why is it not the same if
there's a law that says I can't secretly provide $1,000,000 in services to the
same elected official in the form of political advertising?

The authors of the U.S. Constitution had some pretty strong ideas on the idea
of bribery; in fact, it's explicitly listed in Article 2, Section 4 as an
impeachable offense. The public has a right to know when its politicians and
government officials are receiving money (or goods and services) from outside
entities.

------
driverdan
Eli 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/faceboo...](https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/06/04/26941316/facebook-
and-google-sued-by-washington-attorney-general-for-failing-to-disclose-
political-ads)

------
ggm
How 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
This 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
And apparently the definition of "coordinate" is quite flexible. E.g.:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/here-are-the-
secret-...](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)

In practice, I'm not sure sufficiently rich people face any practical limits
in influencing elections.

~~~
rhino369
They 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.

~~~
s73v3r_
I completely disagree. Placing a flat limit of $1000 per person per tax year,
and only allowing actual people to contribute should not have any negative
effects on free speech.

~~~
slededit
They aren't contributing to the compaign - Citizens United was about spending
money on your own advertising. You are allowed to buy whatever airtime you
want to say whatever you want.

If you happen to want to say something nice about one candidate or mean about
another in the airtime you bought it's hard to argue that's not covered by
free speech rights.

You can argue that this has perverse effects - but the courts have
consistently held that free speech has wide latitude even when it has negative
effects. Exceptions are extremely limited and the harm has to be immediate and
direct.

~~~
mobilefriendly
Citizens United made and sold a documentary. There's no difference between
that and HBO, spending limits are ultimately an attack on independent media
and new media.

~~~
ethbro
If you equate money spent on political advertising with votes (which I believe
has strong empirical support), then failure to regulate inevitably devolves
democracy into plutocracy.

Assuming that's not desired, the question then becomes how best to balance
free speech with equalizing commercial political speech.

~~~
bmelton
And according to the Supreme Court, many times over, the very purpose of the
first amendment is to protect speech, and the most important form of speech to
protect is political speech.

Yes, there are downsides to unfettered speech, but freedom means having to let
other people do things I don't like, and in exchange, I can do things they
don't like.

If the problem is that money can buy unlimited federal power, then you can
limit the federal powers available for purchase without curtailing the freedom
of the citizenry to engage in political speech as they choose.

~~~
grandmczeb
> If the problem is that money can buy unlimited federal power, then you can
> limit the federal powers available for purchase without curtailing the
> freedom of the citizenry to engage in political speech as they choose.

This is an excellent point.

~~~
squiggleblaz
Actually it isn't.

(a) The money has an outsized power to argue for an increase in available
powers as I said upthread since I couldn't reply here.

(b) Democracies seem to work better and more stably when votes make a
difference. If there's a full house of people wanting to shift in a certain
direction the democratic principle is that the shift in that direction should
happen. Otherwise democracy becomes a sham and its institutions shed trust.
This creates precisely the atmosphere for antidemocratic or unliberal people
to gain power. If you can vote for someone who supports your views but they
can't implement them while they're operating in the system, why not vote for
someone who supports your views and is willing to ignore the system to get it.
And what will all checks and balances do in that environment!

If you like liberal government (in the traditional sense not the partisan
sense), the most effective way to get it is to encourage liberal preferences
in the electorate.

~~~
bmelton
Your response assumes that without the federal government doing something,
nobody will do it, but that misses the fact that we have 50 state governments
and DC perfectly capable of regulating themselves.

Past that, local elections already matter more in one's day to day life than
federal elections, and those votes will have even more value as the role of
the states grow.

~~~
squiggleblaz
It doesn't assume that - it assumes that if it's bad when the federal
government gets involved with something, it's equally bad when the state
government gets involved.

For instance, this thread is about a state pursuing large tech companies on
what can be described as free speech violations.

But I've never seen anyone argue that it's okay for a state government to ban
free speech, but it's not okay for the federal government.

~~~
bmelton
> it assumes that if it's bad when the federal government gets involved with
> something, it's equally bad when the state government gets involved

Which in my opinion is a broadly false assumption, and ignores the very point
of a federal republic, which is federalism. People in different states have
different cultures, different norms, different geographies, different natural
resources, different pastimes, different porn habits, different cuisines, etc.

State legislatures are closer to their voting populace than federal
legislatures, and thus, people's interests can be more directly reflected by
voting more locally.

I agree that a state trampling on your rights is functionally no better than
if a federal government does so, but you have more recourse against a state
government doing so, more opportunities for remedy, and more ways in which to
steer the ship right where those violations are regular.

~~~
squiggleblaz
But then you're need a person who believes in women's rights to believe they
stop at some arbitrary line on a map -- because American states are more like
American counties than European states -- and also that anyone who believes in
pro life to believe that fetal rights stop at some arbitrary line on a map. To
the extent that there is competition and variety in laws there are also
pressures and powers to make them homogeneous again.

As for having better oversight of state governments compared to federal
governments, I think the US, Canada and Australia (i.e. all the major English-
speaking federations and therefore the extent of my knowledge) have had
significant problems with corruption at a state level but not so significant
problems with corruption at a federal level.

Federal systems have important roles especially when -- unlike in the US --
the state borders reproduce cultural or settlement boundaries. But
_empirically_ this role is not a protection of rights. If the federal
government needs more members of congress to function right, you can't say "oh
we've got state governments" \-- you've just gotta increase the size of
congress. (FWIW, some states like California also need to take this lesson.)
And if you need to protect rights, the only place to do that is in the public
sphere and the community mind. Every other option might be easier but they're
also much more short sighted.

~~~
bmelton
> But then you're need a person who believes in women's rights to believe they
> stop at some arbitrary line on a map

Not so. I'm not advocating the elimination of the federal government, nor am I
advocating for a reduction in the role of the courts. The 14th amendment
exists, incorporates the inalienable rights in the constitution against the
states, and I believe that is just and true.

That said, yes, there are logical, rational disputes on what rights allow one
to do or not do, and yes, those rights are treated differently within
arbitrary geographical boundaries. This is true today. There are people in
jail right now for marijuana possession because they got caught with it in the
wrong state, but that pales in comparison to the number of people who were
jailed for marijuana because its illegality was imposed upon them by federal
decree. Similarly so with immigration, gun rights, and a variety of other
topics.

The law isn't settled on every subject, and there are often reasonable
interpretations by well-meaning people in either direction. Having the federal
government set policy clearly doesn't solve for every edge case, and I
maintain that if you are caught up in a "bad place" by an interpretation of
rights that disfavors you, it's a lot easier to relocate from say, California
to Arizona (or vice versa) than to have to abandon America because it
disfavors your rights.

If, for example, states were allowed to implement current TSA procedures as
they preferred, you would likely have states competing on rubrics of security,
while others competed on efficiency, or perhaps traveler friendliness. Now,
instead of alienating travelers from abroad from visiting America, perhaps
they are only alienated from flying into certain states.

As for the corruption angle, again, I'm not proposing we abolish the federal
government, merely reduce its workload so that it can function better as a
watchdog over the states to prevent and squash corruption. Having better
representation locally _and_ federally is of course a good thing, and
especially so as it better empowers the adversarial system to hone in on those
things that we all do agree upon, and protect those rights from being
infringed upon.

Lastly, I'm not suggesting that it's a silver bullet, and that any of my ideas
"solve" America, but I do think they improve upon the checks and balances that
we're used to having, and allow for more freedom within American borders than
we currently have, and more insulation from the legal interpretations of
presidents as they are elected, and I think that's a net good.

------
smsm42
Wait, 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
Disclosure 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
> 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.

------
tripzilch
> 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.

------
samdoidge
The title should be updated to include 'political' before 'spending'.

------
IronWolve
I 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
> if they cant even track what they gave

The article is about what they were paid, as advertising platforms, not what
they gave.

------
apeace
Off-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.

------
AzzieElbab
Doesn't seem like a very good investment on their part

------
vinay427
The "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
updated the title. Thanks

------
edbaskerville
Could you change the title to say "State of Washington"?

~~~
arwineap
Wouldn't the short of Washington DC simply be DC?

~~~
tajen
Isn’t the state of Washington in Seattle? which means something else entirely.

~~~
itchyjunk
Seattle[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_\(state\))

------
sqdbps
... in the latest chapter of scapegoating internet firms for Trump's election.

~~~
lewisinc
Mmm, this is Washington State, not DC

