A Washington state judge on Wednesday fined Facebook parent company Meta nearly $25 million for repeatedly and intentionally violating campaign finance disclosure law, in what is believed to be the largest campaign finance penalty in U.S. history.
The penalty issued by King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North was the maximum allowed for more than 800 violations of Washington's Fair Campaign Practices Act, passed by voters in 1972 and later strengthened by the Legislature.
Washington's transparency law requires ad sellers such as Meta to keep and make public the names and addresses of those who buy political ads, the target of such ads, how the ads were paid for and the total number of views of each ad. Ad sellers must provide the information to anyone who asks for it.
But Meta has repeatedly objected to the requirements, arguing unsuccessfully in court that the law is unconstitutional because it "Unduly burdens political speech" and is "Virtually impossible to fully comply with." While Facebook does keep an archive of political ads that run on the platform, the archive does not disclose all the information required under Washington's law.
In 2018, following Ferguson's first lawsuit, Facebook agreed to pay $238,000 and committed to transparency in campaign finance and political advertising.
North fined Meta $30,000 for each of its 822 violations - about $24.7 million.
Ferguson described the fine as the largest campaign finance-related penalty ever issued in the U.S. Meta, one of the world's richest companies, reported quarterly earnings Wednesday of $4.4 billion, or $1.64 per share, on revenue of nearly $28 billion, in the three month period that ended Sept. 30.
https://apnews.com/article/business-seattle-washington-8e0dfaf7f9d7246583da33693559d36e
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