State lawmakers in Maryland, New York, and Washington weigh bills regulating political ads on Facebook, Google, and Twitter
Tony Romm / Washington Post : Tweets: @russellbrandom . Thanks: @tonyromm See also Mediagazer Tweets: Russell Brandom / @russellbrandom : Regulating Facebook and Google at the state level seems like a worst-case-scenario for just about everyone. But when Congress is broken, what else can you do? http://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Thanks: @tonyromm See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
With Congress unable to move on ad-disclosure legislation, the action shifts to the states: Maryland, New York, and Washington are each drafting their own rules for political ads on Facebook, Google, and Twitter. As Russell Brandom frames it, state-level regulation is a worst-case scenario for the platforms — but it is what happens when the federal route is blocked.
The later record shows how this plays out. Facebook and Google imposed their own political-ad ban in Washington state, which produced uneven enforcement and confusing rules rather than clean compliance. Google then unilaterally curtailed microtargeting of political ads, frustrating campaigns in both parties, while money chased the gaps — Republican super PACs shifted millions onto platforms with no advertiser transparency. Meanwhile the industry's lobby went on offense against state authority itself, joining the Chamber's challenge to Maryland's digital services tax.
First-order effects
- Facebook, Google, and Twitter would have to build state-specific ad disclosure and verification systems for three separate rulebooks instead of waiting for one federal standard.
- Campaigns and committees buying ads in those states face divergent disclosure requirements depending on which state's voters they target.
Second-order effects
- The platforms' likely counter is preemption by policy — as the Washington ban showed, self-imposed restrictions let them set the terms, but at the cost of uneven enforcement that frustrates both parties.
- Money leaks around the rules: when major platforms restrict or complicate political buying, spenders migrate to smaller platforms with no transparency obligations, as super PAC spending after the bans demonstrated.
Third-order effects
- If state legislatures keep filling the vacuum, the industry faces a durable patchwork — and its trade groups shift from lobbying Congress to litigating against state statutes, as the Internet Association did in Maryland.
- A fragmented regulatory map widens the auditability gap: researchers already report weakened tracking tools on the major platforms, so ad money flowing to unregulated venues makes independent oversight harder, not easier.
The trend: Political-ad governance is migrating from a stalled Congress to state legislatures and platform self-regulation, pushing ad dollars toward the least transparent corners of the market.