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Senators Announce New Bill That Would Regulate Online Political Ads (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: As tech companies face continued scrutiny over Russian activity on their ad platforms, Senators today announced legislation meant to regulate political ads on the internet. The new bill, called the Honest Ads Act, would require companies like Facebook and Google to keep copies of political ads and make them publicly available. Under the act, the companies would also be required to release information on who those ads were targeted to, as well as information on the buyer and the rates charged for the ads. The new rules would bring disclosure rules more in line with how political ads are regulated in mediums like print and TV, and apply to any platform with more than 50 million monthly viewers. The companies would be required to keep and release data on anyone spending more than $500 on political ads in a year. It's unclear how well the bill will fare. Companies like Facebook have been successfully fighting regulations for years. But this latest attempt has some bipartisan support: the act, sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) is also co-sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). "Americans deserve to know who's paying for the online ads," Klobuchar said at a press conference announcing the legislation.
The CU doesn't mention nationality. In fact, it did not overturn existing laws banning foreign campaign expenditures. And, it has specific language about transparency in campaign spending. In the majority opinion, Justice Scalia specifically said that Congress needed to pass laws requiring that all campaign expenditures should be transparent.
All this new bill does is codify what the Supreme Court decided in Citizens United.
You are welcome on my lawn.
BS yourself.
Requiring disclosure of who paid for the ads != free speech violation.
Controlling means content.
This has nothing to do with content.
This has nothing to do with restricting speech.
All this does is bring online political ads to the same standard that already exists for all other forms of political advertising (print, radio, tv, etc).
You once again are miscomprehending and misrepresenting the issue.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
If the idea is to identify Psy Ops performed by the Russkies then indeed this bill is missing the forest for the trees. Just think Pizzagate - no one in their right mind would consider that a political ad. Still, it played a part in discrediting the Democrats and the Clinton campaign. I still think it's a good bill though - online political ads should be treated no differently than tv ads. Just don't miss the forest for the trees..