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Senators Announce New Bill That Would Regulate Online Political Ads (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the publicly-available dept.

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.

6 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    The Russan ads WERE promoting Hillary. Though the more people knew of Hillary the less they liked her. That is the problem with long time Democrats, they get a lot of shit in their trunk and when it is opened, no one likes it.

    Really, who pays for them isn't important, it is if they are true or not is the important part. (though Democrats would never support a bill like that)

  2. Re: First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    No, they werenâ(TM)t. They were race baiting republicans with fake BLM content, and right wing talking points. And it wasnâ(TM)t 100k. Stop getting your fake news from Brietbart.

  3. Okay, then ... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Americans deserve to know who's paying for the online ads," Klobuchar said at a press conference announcing the legislation.

    ... how about also requiring all, and all types of, Political Action Committees (PACs) to disclose their donors and amounts donated (note that some, but not all types, of PACs are already required to do so). And, perhaps, prominently disclose when lobbyists and special-interest groups author or edit the legislation for you Senators and Representatives. And, how about more strictly enforcing the laws the prohibit the revolving-door appointments between industry and the departments regulating those industries -- like the new FCC Chairman Ajit V. Pai, who was previously Associate General Counsel at Verizon Communications.

    Americans deserve to know who's paying (off) our Representatives and deserve to have those representatives and the others running our government to work for the benefit of ALL the people as a whole and not just the rich and powerful. </rant>

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re:Okay, then ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ugh, stop perpetuating this lie.

  4. It wasn't the ads dummy by Arzaboa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The ad's were to suck folks in. It was the barrage of interactive trolling that sealed the deal. Propaganda works.

    --
    "No Branch!" -- Poppi

    1. Re:It wasn't the ads dummy by Xyrus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There should be an asterisk next to that statement. Propaganda always works IF you know the population you are targeting.

      Russia knew EXACTLY who they were targeting. They knew the issues, the hot buttons, the ideologues. In fact, the world of global media made their job almost idiotically simple. Most Americans don't give a shit about what happens in the rest of the world, but the rest of the world certainly gets more than they care for of America via our never ending stream of media. No subterfuge or spying necessary. The Russians literally just watched our 24 hour news networks and built a targeted propaganda campaign from that.

      And of course, that never-ending stream of idiocy also primed the pump to the point where it was almost impossible for the Russian campaign to fail. People WANTED to believe. They turned off the critical thinking parts of their brain long ago, and would just vacuum up anything that agreed with their world view no matter how ludicrous or questionable the source might be. The Russian troll masters didn't even need to try. One comment and an entire forum would go up like a tinder box.

      Easiest intelligence operation ever.

      --
      ~X~