Facebook Fought Rules That Could Have Exposed Fake Russian Ads (bloomberg.com)

According to Bloomberg, Facebook has for years fought to avoid being transparent about who's behind election-related ads online. "Since 2011, Facebook has asked the Federal Election Commission for blanket exemptions from political advertising disclosure rules -- transparency that could have helped it avoid the current crisis over Russia ad spending ahead of the 2016 U.S. election," reports Bloomberg. From the report: Communications law requires traditional media like TV and radio to track and disclose political ad buyers. The rule doesn't apply online, an exemption that's helped Facebook's self-serve advertising business generate hundreds of millions of dollars in political campaign spots. When the company was smaller, the issue was debated in some policy corners of Washington. Now that the social network is such a powerful political tool, with more than 2 billion users, the topic is at the center of a debate about the future of American democracy. Back in 2011, Facebook argued for the exemption for the same reasons as internet search giant Google: its ads are too small and have a character limit, leaving no room for language saying who paid for a campaign, according to documents on the FEC's website. Some FEC commissioners agreed, while others argued that Facebook could provide a clickable web link to get more information about the ad.

Facebook wouldn't budge. It warned that FEC proposals for more political ad disclosure could hinder free speech in a 2011 opinion written by Marc Elias, a high-powered Democratic lawyer who later became general counsel for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. Colin Stretch, a top Facebook lawyer, said the agency "should not stand in the way of innovation," and warned that such rules would quickly become obsolete. When it came time for the FEC to decide in June 2011, the agency's six commissioners split on a 3-3 vote. Facebook didn't get its exemption, so an advertiser using its platform was still subject to a 2006 ruling by the FEC requiring disclosure. But the company allowed ads to run without those disclaimers, leaving it up to ad buyers to comply.

Comments

Wait a minute.

[mark_reh]

Every time I follow a link to a news story, the web site puts a popup on my browser that says I should turn off my ad blocker. Are you going to tell me that Facebook can't generate a popup that shows the source of an ad when you simply move you mouse or pointer or finger over the ad? I have a hard time believing that.

Re:Wait a minute.

[Anonymous Coward]

This law does what the Constitution says "no law" can do. So how is that not a violation?

The text of the 1st amendment does not run "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of foreign intelligence services to undermine this Constitution." It provides no constitutional guarantee of anonymity such as you appear to claim nor does it prohibit laws requiring disclosure in regard to political advertising.

Indeed, as the distinction between prohibiting certain US persons from publishing political ads (clearly unconstitutional) and the requirement of those persons to disclose themselves (not unconstitutional) was made clear in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 558 U.S. 310 (2010), your position would appear difficult to sustain.

Re:Wait a minute.

[jbengt]

The right to anonymity is considered by many to be essential to the right to freedom of speech. It's a contentious issue of debate, and I lean towards that opinion. But the courts almost never consider any single right to be absolute, and will weigh one right against other rights and against potential consequences; e.g. conspiracy to commit a crime is not protected speech. As pointed out above, courts have ruled that your right to know who is supporting a political candidate is greater than the right of that person, corporation, or political entity to be anonymous. The same does not hold for paid speech advocating a policy rather than a candidate, so there's a lot of grey area in the law.
IANAL, YMMV, etc.

Sounds familiar

[quonset]

This is exactly what the banks and Wall Street firms did from 2005 - 2007. Every time a bill came up which would require them to be more transparent, to have greater oversight applied, to hold more cash on hand, they fought it tooth and nail. Their claim was all those "rules" would defeat their competitive nature in the financial markets. Don't worry. They knew what they're doing. It was different this time.

We saw how that worked out.

Now here we are, with Facebook having done the same thing and having to face up to the reality of why those rules were necessary. It will be interesting to hear the excuses Zuck throws out. He's already given his faux apology and faux promise to make things better. All that's left is for him to flip us the middle finger like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein have done and the circle will be complete.

At least the Senate investigation into Russian collusion is still going strong and expanding.

Podesta's leaked emails proved Facebook...

[Anonymous Coward]

colluded with Hillary's campaign:

http://truepundit.com/wikileaks-bombshell-podesta-emails-prove-facebook-colluded-with-hillary-clinton-during-election/

So now we're supposed to believe that about $50k worth of Facebook ads tilted the election to Trump despite the fact Hillary spent over $1.2 billion during her campaign?

Re:Podesta's leaked emails proved Facebook...

[Mashiki]

The alternative is to believe that Hillary and her team made bad decisions and also did not spend all that money effectively.

You mean besides being an unlikable candidate, pissing off core democrat voters, rigging their own primary? That even when Donna Brazile leaked debate questions to Clinton she still lost the debate? Nah, none of that is her fault we know that. She keeps screeching and saying so, it was all that Russia's fault. And she would have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been those pesky kids from 4chan and their cartoon frog.

The most hilarious thing was pepe. Even the hillary loving pundits in Canada went on and on about how stupid she was trying to make it into something.

Re:"current crisis over Russia ad spending"

[HermMunster]

Including having the UK Parliament publicly make statements about Trump's mental health and or fitness for office before the election? How about that? How about the US media that aired those abusive statements and comments? How on Earth do you enforce any of it?

What law, BTW? What law says that they can't post political ads?

What about Hillary's campaign working with Ukraine on getting the dirt on Trump? How about the Hillary campaign using a business that paid for the dirty dossier generated by an ex member of the UK intelligence agencies? How about once an intelligence agent then always an intelligence agent?

At what point do you cease allowing the political party a say on when and what will be enforced?

Re:"current crisis over Russia ad spending"

[ClickOnThis]

Including having the UK Parliament publicly make statements about Trump's mental health and or fitness for office before the election? How about that? How about the US media that aired those abusive statements and comments?

If the UK parliament were to comment on a candidate's mental health, and the media (US or otherwise) reports on it, that's perfectly fine.

But if the UK parliament were to pay money to run political ads on US media about a candidate's mental health, then yes, that's illegal.