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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

#31

Post by rhino369 »

wpietri wrote: post #23
jdavis703 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't strictly illegal in the U.S. due to the Citizens United decision. Because of free speech blah blah blah I can spend an unlimited amount of money for a cause or canidate as long as I don't coordinate with that campaign.

And apparently the definition of "coordinate" is quite flexible. E.g.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/here-are-the-secret-... In practice, I'm not sure sufficiently rich people face any practical limits in influencing elections.

They don’t because of the first amendment. A person is allowed to influence the election as much as they can. There is no difference between HBO broadcasting Bill Maher into millions of home and Bill Maher paying for YouTube ads.

You can’t even differentiate between people and corporations. Because otherwise the government could tell the New York Times to stop writing articles against trump. After all they are a for profit corporation.

It’s a tough spot.

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

#32

Post by s73v3r_ »

rhino369 wrote: post #31
wpietri wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And apparently the definition of "coordinate" is quite flexible. E.g.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/here-are-the-secret-... In practice, I'm not sure sufficiently rich people face any practical limits in influencing elections.

They don’t because of the first amendment. A person is allowed to influence the election as much as they can. There is no difference between HBO broadcasting Bill Maher into millions of home and Bill Maher paying for YouTube ads. You can’t even differentiate between people and corporations. Because otherwise the government could tell the New York Times to stop writing articles against trump. After all they are a for…

I completely disagree. Placing a flat limit of $1000 per person per tax year, and only allowing actual people to contribute should not have any negative effects on free speech.

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

#33

Post by slededit »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #32
rhino369 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t because of the first amendment. A person is allowed to influence the election as much as they can. There is no difference between HBO broadcasting Bill Maher into millions of home and Bill Maher paying for YouTube ads. You can’t even differentiate between people and corporations. Because otherwise the government could tell the New York Times to stop writing articles against trump. After all they are a for…

I completely disagree. Placing a flat limit of $1000 per person per tax year, and only allowing actual people to contribute should not have any negative effects on free speech.

They aren't contributing to the compaign - Citizens United was about spending money on your own advertising. You are allowed to buy whatever airtime you want to say whatever you want.

If you happen to want to say something nice about one candidate or mean about another in the airtime you bought it's hard to argue that's not covered by free speech rights.

You can argue that this has perverse effects - but the courts have consistently held that free speech has wide latitude even when it has negative effects. Exceptions are extremely limited and the harm has to be immediate and direct.

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

#34

Post by madeofpalk »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #25
hudibras wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the buyers are all registered political entities: candidates' campaigns, political action committees, etc. It's illegal for a "regular person" to go buy political ads and not register with the state.

That sounds like an outrageous First Amendment violation.

Does it?

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

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

#35

Post by hydrox24 »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #32
rhino369 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t because of the first amendment. A person is allowed to influence the election as much as they can. There is no difference between HBO broadcasting Bill Maher into millions of home and Bill Maher paying for YouTube ads. You can’t even differentiate between people and corporations. Because otherwise the government could tell the New York Times to stop writing articles against trump. After all they are a for…

I completely disagree. Placing a flat limit of $1000 per person per tax year, and only allowing actual people to contribute should not have any negative effects on free speech.

Are you going to stop people from buying $2000 of ad space in their local newspaper and using it to personally endorse a candidate? Or endorse a candidates' stance on a range of issues? Or push hard for the same side of an issue that a candidate is taking?

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

#37

Post by verelo »

edbaskerville wrote: post #30

Could you change the title to say "State of Washington"?

Here I was thinking George was up to something!

In all seriousness, this really should be updated, but somehow omitting "state of" sounds more powerful to me...although I'm not sure why I feel this way?

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

#38

Post by tajen »

arwineap wrote: post #36
edbaskerville wrote: post #30

Could you change the title to say "State of Washington"?

Wouldn't the short of Washington DC simply be DC?

Isn’t the state of Washington in Seattle? which means something else entirely.

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

#39

Post by myWindoonn »

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 not just offices in Oregon, but datacenters too, with the Prineville and The Dalles facilities respectively.

Edit: You want pseudonymous/anonymous/corporate speech in politics? Form a PAC and donate to it. That's what PACs are for. Might as well stand for "Pseudonyms, Anons, and Corporations", am I right?

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

#40

Post by craftyguy »

arwineap wrote: post #36
edbaskerville wrote: post #30

Could you change the title to say "State of Washington"?

Wouldn't the short of Washington DC simply be DC?

Direct Current? Joking aside, ambiguous 2 letter acronyms is not really a good way to reference a US city, since there are folks here who are not in the US.
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