Washington State Sues Facebook and Google for Failing to Disclose Political Ad Spending
The Washington State announced on Monday, June 4, that it had filed suits against Facebook and Google. The two tech giants collected millions for political advertising services in the state for years but failed to publish information about it as required by state law, as the suits alleged.
In simple terms, state law in Washington requires that "political campaign and lobbying contributions and expenditures be fully disclosed to the public and that secrecy is to be avoided," something that Facebook and Google have not sufficiently done, according to the lawsuit filed by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson.
Specifically, the suits sought penalties against the two companies for failing to disclose ad spending in state elections, according to Reuters. Ferguson's suits alleged that the companies have not sufficiently disclosed election ad spending since 2013.
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State law requires that "documents and books of account" are to be made available to the public during the campaign period and at least three years after, as pointed out by Tech Crunch. Moreover, these should have details on the groups that bought ad services, including the name of the candidate and the advertiser, the address, how much they bought as well as the method of payment use and a description of services rendered to them.
According to Ferguson, Facebook and Google have both "failed to obtain and maintain" the records, and it's not just the state Attorney General that was not able to get these books of account from the two companies.
Eli Sanders of "The Stranger," a publication well regarded in Seattle, also asked for these books of account from Facebook and Google but was met with not much to show for it.
Facebook, for its part, claimed to have recently come up with tools that users can use to look up information on the political ads being bought on the social media platform. "Attorney General Ferguson has raised important questions and we look forward to resolving this matter with his office quickly," the social media platform said in a statement.
Google said it's "committed to transparency and disclosure in political advertising," adding that it is currently reviewing the complaint and will get in touch with the Attorney General's office soon.
Facebook and Google have earlier faced scrutiny from lawmakers and their users in general, coming to a point where Facebook had to hand over evidence that Russia-linked groups allegedly used fake accounts to buy political ads that may have played a role in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
Based on the total yearly amounts listed in the two lawsuits, political ad spending on Facebook started from $129,099 in 2013 but then quickly skyrocketed to $1,153,688 in 2016, as listed by Tech Crunch. Available data suggest that Facebook took in about $3.4 million over the last decade.
Ad buying trends were pretty much the same on Google, which has $310,175 listed for 2016. Overall, Google received about $1.5 million over the same period, looking at the numbers available so far.
