A Washington state judge fined Facebook‘s parent company, Meta, nearly $25 million on Wednesday for violating campaign finance disclosure law repeatedly and intentionally, in what is believed to be the largest campaign finance penalty in US history.
The penalty imposed by King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North was the maximum allowed for more than 800 violations of Washington’s Fair Campaign Practices Act, which voters approved in 1972 and was later strengthened by the Legislature. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson argued that the maximum penalty was appropriate because his office had previously sued Facebook for violating the same law in 2018.
Meta, based in Menlo Park, California, did not respond immediately to an email requesting comment.
According to Washington’s transparency law, ad sellers like Meta must keep and make public the names and addresses of those who buy political ads, the target of such ads, how the ads were paid for, and the total number of views of each ad. Ad sellers are required to provide the information to anyone who requests it. For decades, television stations and newspapers have followed the law.
Meta, on the other hand, has repeatedly claimed in court that the requirements are unconstitutional because they “unduly burden political speech” and are “virtually impossible to fully comply with.” While Facebook does keep a record of political advertisements that run on the platform, the record does not include all of the information required by Washington law.
“In this case, I have one word for Facebook’s behaviour: arrogance,” Ferguson said in a statement. “It deliberately disregarded Washington’s election transparency laws.” However, this was insufficient. Facebook argued in court that the laws were unconstitutional. That is amazing.
“Where has corporate accountability gone?”
Following Ferguson’s initial lawsuit in 2018, Facebook agreed to pay $238,000 in restitution and to commit to greater transparency in campaign finance and political advertising. Instead of meeting the requirements, it later announced that it would no longer sell political advertisements in the state.
Despite this, the company continued to sell political advertisements, prompting Ferguson to file a new lawsuit in 2020.
“Meta was aware that its announced ‘ban’ would not, and did not, prevent all such advertising from appearing on its platform,” North wrote last month in finding that Meta violations were intentional.
Each law violation is typically punishable by a fine of up to $10,000, but penalties can be tripled if a judge determines it was done on purpose. Meta was fined $30,000 per violation, for a total of $24.7 million. The fine was described by Ferguson as “the largest campaign finance-related penalty ever imposed in the United States.”
In the three months that ended Sept. 30, Meta, one of the world’s wealthiest companies, reported $4.4 billion in quarterly earnings, or $1.64 per share, on revenue of nearly $28 billion.
