A Washington court rules Meta repeatedly violated the state's campaign finance transparency law for political ads and must pay penalties yet to be determined
Meta, Facebook's parent company, repeatedly and intentionally violated Washington campaign-ad transparency law and must pay penalties yet …
The Seattle TimesJim Brunner
Context & Ripple Effects
Meta's ad business has spent 2022 absorbing a string of legal hits over how it targets and discloses advertising: a June DOJ settlement over housing-ad discrimination forced changes to ad targeting, and now a Washington court has found the company repeatedly and intentionally violated the state's campaign finance transparency law for political ads.
The open question at this stage is the penalty amount — Washington law caps per-violation fines, and the state's maximum-possible-fine structure means the eventual number could be substantial. The ruling also lands amid broader regulatory pressure on Meta's ad model, from the Irish DPC's €390M behavioral-ad fine to a US judge clearing the way for an FTC breakup trial.
First-order effects
Meta must pay yet-to-be-determined penalties for what the court characterized as repeated, intentional violations of Washington's political-ad disclosure requirements, and faces ongoing compliance obligations for political ads run on Facebook in the state.
Second-order effects
The finding that violations were intentional rather than negligent strengthens other regulators' hands: it gives campaigns and watchdogs in other states a documented precedent that Meta's disclosure failures are systemic, not accidental, raising the odds of copycat enforcement actions against its political-ad business.
Third-order effects
If state-level campaign finance enforcement keeps escalating — as the pattern from this ruling toward later, larger penalties suggests — platform political advertising may consolidate around audited disclosure pipelines, with Meta treating per-state transparency compliance as a standing cost of operating its ads business rather than a one-off legal exposure.
The trend: Meta's advertising practices are being disciplined jurisdiction by jurisdiction — state campaign finance law, EU data protection, US antitrust — with each adverse ruling hardening the legal template the next regulator applies.
Having ruled that Washington State's unique political ad transparency law is constitutional, and having found that Facebook intentionally and repeatedly violated that law, Judge North will next consider (at a future date) fines and a potential injunction requiring FB to comply.
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
Facebook's attorney repeatedly pointed out that the company decided to ban political ads in Washington State to avoid the state's disclosure law. But Judge North called FB's measure “a ban you could drive a Mack truck through, since they're not trying to enforce it.”
@bobfergusonag
Bob Ferguson on x
#BREAKING: We won. The judge ruled that Facebook intentionally violated Washington's campaign finance transparency law — and rejected Facebook's cynical attempt to strike down our campaign finance law. https://twitter.com/...
@carycmoon
Cary Moon on x
@elijsanders Congratulations! Thank you @elijsanders and everyone in @BobFergusonAG office who made this happen.
@chaseburnsy
Chase Burns on x
@elijsanders @lewiskamb :)
@ira_hyman
Ira on x
Woohoo! Hooray for Washington, my state, for requiring Facebook to be responsible for transparency about political ads as all other media are responsible. Thanks to our attorney general for the good work here. https://twitter.com/...
@melissaryan
Melissa Ryan on x
What a surprise. https://www.seattletimes.com/ ...
@cruickshank
Robert Cruickshank on x
Whoa https://twitter.com/...
@rcalo
Ryan Calo on x
Important thread on state court ruling against Facebook on political ad disclosures by @UWSchoolofLaw student and @uwcip fellow Eli Sanders, who has covered this case for years. https://twitter.com/...
@stilldelvingh
@stilldelvingh on x
“Facebook wanted the law declared unconstitutional. “The law is very constitutional,” the judge said.” What “regulation” means: the rule isn't set by the powerful for the powerful Antonym: “self-regulation” https://twitter.com/...
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
In contrast, Judge North said that “public disclosure laws serve one of the fundamental interests that underly the First Amendment, and that is transparency.” He called transparency “essential part of democracy.”
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
“I don't find that Meta's argument on CDA 230 is persuasive,” Judge North said from the bench. CDA 230, the judge said, “is directed at something different”—for ex., shielding platforms from civil defamation lawsuits. “This is a different matter that has to do with disclosure.”
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
The judge also rejected Facebook's argument that it's too burdensome for the company to collect, sort, and disclose all the data needed to comply with Washington State's political ad transparency rules.
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
In sum, Judge North did not buy any of Facebook's major arguments. “Everything,” the judge said, “starts out with, 'We can't comply with this.'” But, Judge North continued, “There is no attempt to analyze whether they really could comply with it.”
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
Another thing Judge North appeared to focus on: This case, now more than two years old, has established that Facebook *did have in its possession* all the data about political ad money trails and targeting that Washington State law required the company to disclose.
@cathygellis
Cathy Gellis on x
This sounds like a very bad, and incorrect, ruling. I wrote about something similar at @techdirt : https://www.techdirt.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@spokanerising
@spokanerising on x
Washington has arguably the best campaign finance and public disclosure laws in the nation. It's long past time for Meta/Facebook to comply. https://twitter.com/...
@kbkev78
Kevin Bennett on x
@elijsanders A company that has a single software product, and hundreds of billions of dollars in capital, and one of the most competent teams of coders in the world, argues that it cannot display data that it has ib its possession. Literally, that is all their software product d…
@washingtoncog
@washingtoncog on x
Facebook's violations of WA state's campaign finance disclosure law were first discovered by @elijsanders. Check out his excellent thread, below. https://twitter.com/...
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
“In essence, the only reason why Meta refuses to comply with the law is, to put it colloquially, they don't want the public to see how the sausage is made,” Judge North said. “Because...”
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
“Because it's a very lucrative business to Meta,” Judge North continued. “And if they've got to reveal that information there may be less of it and they make less money.”
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
(Later in the hearing, Facebook's attorney specifically disputed Judge North's “press a button” contention.)
@samred
@samred on x
Huge victory for citizens in Washington State, and a huge repudiation of Meta's disingenuous legal efforts both here and elsewhere in terms of how it profits from political ad income obfiscation. Thread: https://twitter.com/...
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
“They,” meaning Facebook employees, “necessarily collect [that data] in order to be able to run the ads they are running,” Judge North said. “All they have to do in order to be able to display it is essentially press a button.”
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
One thing Judge North appeared particularly focused on: the age of Washington's disclosure law, which was first enacted by voter initiative in 1972. When an attorney for FB/Meta claimed WA's rules are a national outlier without “a long track-record,” Judge North interrupted him.
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
In addition to arguing that Washington State's political ad disclosure law violates the First Amendment, Facebook (now Meta) had argued that Washington's rules violate federal law (specifically CDA 230). Judge North found Facebook's argument to be “a misapplication of the law.”
@elijsanders
Eli Sanders on x
“But the law does have a long history outside of digital platforms,” Judge North told the lawyer for Facebook. “I mean, we've been doing this for 50 years with radio, TV, etc.” This was a point made repeatedly by lawyers for Washington State: Other mediums comply. Why can't FB?