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| Photo Credit: AP. |
Facebook parent company Meta was Wednesday fined $24.7 million by a Washington state judge for repeated and intentional violations of a campaign finance disclosure law.
King County
Superior Court Judge Douglass North issued the fine after the company violated Washington
Fair Campaign Practices Act for more than 800 times. The law was passed by
voters in 1972 but was later voted upon by the legislature.
The maximum
fine allowed for such violations was appropriate since Facebook was sued in
2018 for violating the same law, said Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson
whose office sued the company that year, The Associated Press reported.
Ad sellers
including Meta are required under Washington’s transparency law to keep and
make public the names and addresses of anyone who purchases political ads, the
target of such ads, and how the ads were paid for and the total number of views
of each ad as well as provide the information to anyone who asks for it,
according to The Associated Press.
Although
Facebook keeps an archive of political ads that run on the platform, it does
not completely comply with the Washington transparency law.
Meta had
argued unsuccessfully in the past that the requirements demanded by the law is
unconstitutional because it “unduly burdens political speech” and is “virtually
impossible to fully comply with,” according to The Associated Press.
“I have one
word for Facebook’s conduct in this case — arrogance,” Ferguson said in a news
release. “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?”