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State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending

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Re: State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending

#121

Post by ggm »

searealist wrote: post #69
ggm wrote: post #7

How many of the funders breached federal or state mandated limits on spending? I ask, because in the "brexit" circumstances it becomes clear the "leave" campaign eggregiously breached the declared public advertising spending limits through use of indirect/third-party funding channels who did placement in social media.

What an awkward segue into complaining about brexit. FYI, Google and Facebook are extremely left-wing organizations.

I am using brexit, as an instance of comparison to distortion in funding models for election-like behaviour.

What I think about brexit isn't fit to print. What matters in context, is the abuse of the funding model to distort the inputs to the process. And, that feels (to me) what is at the heart of the complaint from Washingon state about FB and Google.

When people use social media to try and influence public opinion heading to votes of any kind, be they elections, or referendum, or plebescite, I think the money behind that social media should be declared and understood.

Koch Brothers.

Re: State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending

#122

Post by [deleted] »

seandougall wrote: post #89
CamperBob2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something about "making no law abridging the freedom of the press." What other forms of speech would you, personally, like to see require government registration?

How about: any claim to be a medical professional, law enforcement officer, or attorney? (I’m sure there’s more, but those come immediately to mind.)

[deleted]

Re: State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending

#123

Post by verbify »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #113
untog wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is also an order of magnitude bigger than a local TV station. They have no excuse.

On the other hand, a local TV station only needs to know and comply with the election laws of their own city. Google needs to know and comply with the local laws of every city in the world.

I think you're understating this potential breach in law. This isn't a local law of some city in the world - it is a state law in the country these companies were founded in.

And it isn't some odd law that the company would easily forget about - FB and Google both get their revenue from advertising, and political advertising disclosure laws are pretty common. While Washington might have some stricter rules, I'd expect the companies to have a division working on compliance.

Re: State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending

#124

Post by squiggleblaz »

bmelton wrote: post #107
squiggleblaz wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it isn't. (a) The money has an outsized power to argue for an increase in available powers as I said upthread since I couldn't reply here. (b) Democracies seem to work better and more stably when votes make a difference. If there's a full house of people wanting to shift in a certain direction the democratic principle is that the shift in that direction should happen. Otherwise democracy becomes a sham and i…

Your response assumes that without the federal government doing something, nobody will do it, but that misses the fact that we have 50 state governments and DC perfectly capable of regulating themselves. Past that, local elections already matter more in one's day to day life than federal elections, and those votes will have even more value as the role of the states grow.

It doesn't assume that - it assumes that if it's bad when the federal government gets involved with something, it's equally bad when the state government gets involved.

For instance, this thread is about a state pursuing large tech companies on what can be described as free speech violations.

But I've never seen anyone argue that it's okay for a state government to ban free speech, but it's not okay for the federal government.

Re: State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending

#125

Post by eru »

myWindoonn wrote: post #39
dillondoyle wrote: post #27

The numbers reported strike me as very small (I buy digital political ads for work). Especially 1.1mm in 2016 for FB statewide strikes me as tiny! Looking at official candidate committees for Senate+Congress only in '16 is close-ish to 30mm raised (1). Plus PACs, 501c3/4s, any Presidential spend on top, I would guess double that at least. Even if 50mm total spend that would be only 2% spent on FB which seems really l…

Doesn't matter; every penny must be accounted for when it comes to political spending. Failure to account is literally the corruption which is rotting the foundation of our democracy. I'm personally applauding Washington for taking this bold move, as both Facebook and Google have Seattle-area offices which they will likely not want to close. Washington and Oregon tend to act alike, and both Facebook and Google have n…

> Doesn't matter; every penny must be accounted for when it comes to political spending. Failure to account is literally the corruption which is rotting the foundation of our democracy.

I can see that laws should be followed. But from a moral point of view your outrage seems overblown.

(Eg first-past-the-post is much more damaging to your democracy than a penny here or there.)

Re: State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending

#126

Post by TomMckenny »

TomMckenny wrote: post #21
kolpa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is an Attorney General enforcing the laws of the state "activist"?

Depends on whether your party leader is declared above the law.

I can't fathom why the mere mentioning the new doctrine of self-pardon makes people mad.

It was announced was it not? I assume all readers are either happy and proud of it or not in which case why shoot the messenger?

Re: State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending

#127

Post by eru »

candiodari wrote: post #116
nitwit005 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of issue has cropped up since there started being commercial activity on the internet. If you try to start a company like ebay, you'll learn that means complying with every relevant local, national, and international law, for any item it's possible to sell, and updating the rules every times they change.

What do you mean ? Ebay isn't even subject to normal sales tax in Australia yet (will happen this July). I mean it's changing, but these multinational companies have "bypassed" (ignored and gotten away with) normal sale laws for various reasons in so many ways.

For a company a large part of being subject to laws is to hire lawyers to help you navigate them.

Similar to physical laws and hiring engineers.

Re: State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending

#128

Post by SamReidHughes »

mulmen wrote: post #120
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, a local TV station only needs to know and comply with the election laws of their own city. Google needs to know and comply with the local laws of every city in the world.

This isn’t even remotely compelling. Companies have to comply with local laws. “We’re too big to follow the rules” is no excuse. If you need an example (which you should not) I worked for a small (~100 employee) phone company and we complied with all tax laws nationwide at a federal, state, county and municipality level. That’s a lot of regulation. It was a lot of work. We did it. What’s Google’s excuse?

Yes it is an excuse. Having to comply with all these regional laws to run an ad service has a chilling effect on speech. A small or large one, depending on compliance costs.

Re: State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending

#129

Post by dillondoyle »

myWindoonn wrote: post #39
dillondoyle wrote: post #27

The numbers reported strike me as very small (I buy digital political ads for work). Especially 1.1mm in 2016 for FB statewide strikes me as tiny! Looking at official candidate committees for Senate+Congress only in '16 is close-ish to 30mm raised (1). Plus PACs, 501c3/4s, any Presidential spend on top, I would guess double that at least. Even if 50mm total spend that would be only 2% spent on FB which seems really l…

Doesn't matter; every penny must be accounted for when it comes to political spending. Failure to account is literally the corruption which is rotting the foundation of our democracy. I'm personally applauding Washington for taking this bold move, as both Facebook and Google have Seattle-area offices which they will likely not want to close. Washington and Oregon tend to act alike, and both Facebook and Google have n…

Campaigns already have to report expenditures. But I can understand how some voters want to see where the $ goes, since expenditures only get reported outbound (only 1 step). E.g. pay your consultant 100k, consultant does ___ with the money.

Re: State of Washington sues Facebook and Google over failure to disclose spending

#130

Post by chrismcb »

myWindoonn wrote: post #39
dillondoyle wrote: post #27

The numbers reported strike me as very small (I buy digital political ads for work). Especially 1.1mm in 2016 for FB statewide strikes me as tiny! Looking at official candidate committees for Senate+Congress only in '16 is close-ish to 30mm raised (1). Plus PACs, 501c3/4s, any Presidential spend on top, I would guess double that at least. Even if 50mm total spend that would be only 2% spent on FB which seems really l…

Doesn't matter; every penny must be accounted for when it comes to political spending. Failure to account is literally the corruption which is rotting the foundation of our democracy. I'm personally applauding Washington for taking this bold move, as both Facebook and Google have Seattle-area offices which they will likely not want to close. Washington and Oregon tend to act alike, and both Facebook and Google have n…

And here in thinking that this is a free speech issue. It seems to me that this law is unconstitutional. I don't have an issue with having to track tv ads, as they air over a public spectrum. But as on other media shouldn't be restricted. I wonder if this issue will come down to that?
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