Judge James Robart ruled that Facebook had repeatedly failed to comply with his orders regarding political ads placed by Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential election.
The court said that the social media giant repeatedly violated the state's election laws by failing to provide timely access to its political ad archive.
Choose your court King County Superior Court Judge Douglas North also turned down Facebook’s requests to gut parts of the law, giving Facebook a setback in its challenge of some of the most stringent disclosure rules governing digital political ads in the country.
On Tuesday, Facebook was dealt another blow when an appeals court ruled against the company in a lawsuit brought by Washington state attorney general Bob Ferguson. The case centered on whether Facebook had violated the state's public disclosure laws by limiting the number of times certain ads could run during elections. The ruling comes after Facebook's plan to limit the reach of certain types of political ads failed to sway the judge. "The court rejected Facebook's argument that the First Amendment gives it the right to discriminate among speakers," Ferguson said in a press release. "This decision sends a clear message to Facebook: if you want to continue selling targeted political advertising, you must abide by the rules." The ruling is likely to face scrutiny from lawmakers who have been pushing for greater regulation of online political speech.
The company has been criticized for allowing misinformation to remain online during the 2018 midterm elections, and now they're under fire again for not doing enough to remove misinformation from their platforms ahead of the upcoming presidential race. Critics charge that social media sites like Facebook are selectively censoring conservative voices and news outlets. Supporters argue that these platforms are simply trying to protect free speech by removing content that violates their terms of service.
Facebook has no comment at this time.
If the court rules that Facebook intentionally violated the FTC Act, then Facebook may face fines up to three times its annual revenue for each violation.
Fergusson sued Facebook in April 2020, claiming that the social network didn't comply with new election laws requiring companies to disclose their political ads.
That suit followed another one filed in 2018 that resulted in a consent decree requiring Facebook to pay $238K, according to Ferguson’s office. After Facebook continued running political ads, Ferguson brought a new suit against them in 2020.
Following reports that Russia tried to use social media platforms to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers has proposed new rules requiring online platforms to disclose more about political advertisements. The bill would force large platforms to establish an archive of political campaign advertisements and provide detailed descriptions of the target audiences for each advertisement. Some companies, including Facebook and Google, have already created similar databases.
Facebook has been limiting its ability to target people who access certain types of political or issue advertising for some time now, but last week the social network announced that it was going even further by eliminating the ability to target people based on their political activity on the site.
Naomi Nix is an associate editor at The Washington Post. She previously worked as a journalist for Bloomberg News and the Tribune Company’s Chicago Tribune.
Analysis|Barr's quest to dismantle Trump's classified-document defenses Decades-old audio tape leads to arrest in 1971 cold-case killing Analysis|On judging Trump, Americans are moving from ‘unethical' to ‘illegal' Analysis|In praise of iron fists: Trump leans into his authoritarian instincts At portrait unveiling, Michelle Obama's broad-brush comments touch on Trump.