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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

#101

Post by bmelton »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #86
grandmczeb wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the problem is that money can buy unlimited federal power, then you can limit the federal powers available for purchase without curtailing the freedom of the citizenry to engage in political speech as they choose. This is an excellent point.

Furthermore, it is not well-defined which speech is "political" speech, and which is not. What cause is it possible to advocate for that is not political in some way? If the business of politics and government is passing and implementing laws, then nearly any issue is or can be political in nature. If I advocate for regulating or not regulating the Internet, software, app stores, data privacy (a la GDPR), or basicall…

If we're already in the business of protecting speech, then why does it matter whether a given speech is political enough to warrant protection?

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

#102

Post by mattmcknight »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #82
madeofpalk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it? - it’s barely outrageous - doesn’t seem to be about the first amendment - nor is it much of a violation

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?

Good point. See the Federalist Papers, by Publius.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pseudonyms_used_in_the...

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

#103

Post by sverige »

asfasgasg wrote: post #98

> At least some of the many payments making up these results are not properly documented, and from the looks of it, this could amount to willful negligence. If a company is operating in a state and taking millions for political ads, it really can’t be unaware of that state’s disclosure laws. Seems to be overstating the case just a tad. Less than a million, in total, for Google at least. That's two or three engineer-y…

OTOH, if Google did not willfully fail to follow the law, does that mean they are simply incompetent? Local TV stations find a way to pay attention enough to comply, but Google can't?

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

#104

Post by sverige »

mobilefriendly wrote: post #43
myWindoonn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Anonymous speech (for individuals) is also central to a functioning republic democracy.

Oh, the irony of defending Google and Facebook's right to protect anonymity!

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

#105

Post by nitwit005 »

sdenton4 wrote: post #83

With gdpr, I came to realize that (for better or worse) the internet is transitioning from a place outside of the law to a place subject to the union of all laws.

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.

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

#107

Post by bmelton »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #100
grandmczeb wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the problem is that money can buy unlimited federal power, then you can limit the federal powers available for purchase without curtailing the freedom of the citizenry to engage in political speech as they choose. This is an excellent point.

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.

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

#108

Post by beaner »

sverige wrote: post #103
asfasgasg wrote: post #98

> At least some of the many payments making up these results are not properly documented, and from the looks of it, this could amount to willful negligence. If a company is operating in a state and taking millions for political ads, it really can’t be unaware of that state’s disclosure laws. Seems to be overstating the case just a tad. Less than a million, in total, for Google at least. That's two or three engineer-y…

OTOH, if Google did not willfully fail to follow the law, does that mean they are simply incompetent? Local TV stations find a way to pay attention enough to comply, but Google can't?

Yes, that makes sense to me. Local businesses are much more likely to know the local laws. Google is everywhere, covering thousands of local places. It'd be hard to know all the different regulation.

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

#109

Post by untog »

beaner wrote: post #108
sverige wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH, if Google did not willfully fail to follow the law, does that mean they are simply incompetent? Local TV stations find a way to pay attention enough to comply, but Google can't?

Yes, that makes sense to me. Local businesses are much more likely to know the local laws. Google is everywhere, covering thousands of local places. It'd be hard to know all the different regulation.

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

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

#110

Post by paulddraper »

asfasgasg wrote: post #98

> At least some of the many payments making up these results are not properly documented, and from the looks of it, this could amount to willful negligence. If a company is operating in a state and taking millions for political ads, it really can’t be unaware of that state’s disclosure laws. Seems to be overstating the case just a tad. Less than a million, in total, for Google at least. That's two or three engineer-y…

> It's substantially below the noise threshold

It would appear the amount of money appears to be relatively unimportant.

Don't forget the whole brewhaha over the measily $47k [1] of Facebook ads purchased by Russian agents.

The new base-model SUV that changed the world.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-ad-spend/

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