Ian Patrick, FISM News
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The state of Washington won a lawsuit it had filed against Facebook parent company Meta on Wednesday. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced that the tech giant was ordered to pay a $24,660,000 penalty for hundreds of violations of a campaign finance transparency law.
In a statement, Ferguson celebrated the win, stating that the ruling represented the “maximum penalty” that could be awarded.
Facebook was found guilty by the King County Superior Court of “intentionally and repeatedly” violating Washington’s campaign finance law, which requires advertisers to “maintain records on campaign ads and make them available to the public.” While Meta did make some items available online, it did not include all of the items required, which includes cost, sponsor, and targeting and reach information for each ad.
“Judge Douglass North ruled that Meta intentionally violated Washington law 822 times,” the statement reads. “Because the violations were intentional, the court had the option to triple the penalty, for a maximum of $30,000 per violation.”
The ruling represents the largest campaign finance penalty ever issued anywhere in the country.
Ferguson characterized Meta’s conduct throughout the case as “arrogant” and demanded that the company take responsibility for its role in breaking the law.
It intentionally disregarded Washington’s election transparency laws. But that wasn’t enough. Facebook argued in court that those laws should be declared unconstitutional. That’s breathtaking. Where’s the corporate responsibility? I urge Facebook to come to its senses, accept responsibility, apologize for its conduct, and comply with the law. If Facebook refuses to do this, we will beat them again in court.
The Washington legislation in question that the judge ruled Meta violated is known as RCW 42.17A.345, a law related to a separate law titled WAC 390-18-050. The law provides strict regulations advertisers must adhere to if they “accepted or provided political advertising or electioneering communications during the election campaign.”
The statement from AG Ferguson said the law “requires campaign advertisers, including entities such as Meta that host political ads, to make information about Washington political ads that run on their platforms available for public inspection in a timely manner.”
Ferguson said that Meta has violated the law since December 2018 and continued to do so.
This lawsuit was originally brought by Ferguson against Meta in April 2020, following a similar lawsuit which resolved in December 2018.
In this previous lawsuit, Ferguson sued both Facebook and Google for campaign finance violations which resulted in Facebook paying $238,000. At the time the company said it would also stop selling Washington state political ads, which was not a part of the deal in the 2018 lawsuit.
However, as Ferguson noted in his announcement of the 2020 lawsuit, “Facebook continues to sell advertisements to Washington state political committees – contrary to its voluntary policy.”
“Washingtonians have a right to know who’s behind the ads seeking to influence their vote,” Ferguson said at the time.