Meta’s ‘Arrogance’ Results in Washington Court Fining Company Nearly $25 Million for Disclosure Violations

A car passes Facebook's new Meta logo on a sign at the company headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., on Oct. 28, 2021. (Tony Avelar/AP Photo)

A Washington state court fined Meta $24.66 million for intentionally violating campaign finance disclosure law—the largest-ever such penalty in U.S. history—which was imposed on the company for repeatedly violating state law.

The parent company of social media behemoth Facebook was fined the maximum allowed under the Fair Campaign Practices Act for 822 violations. Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson argued that the fine amount was appropriate, especially because his office previously sued Facebook in 2018 for violating the same law.

The act requires media companies to disclose names and addresses of those who buy political ads, ad targets, how the ads were paid for, and the total number of ad views, to anyone who seeks it. Traditional platforms like television and newspapers have been following the law, passed by voters in 1972, but Meta had repeatedly objected to the requirements.

Meta, in a summary judgment, claimed the law is unconstitutional, and that it “unduly burdens political speech” and is “virtually impossible to fully comply with.” Violators of the law typically are charged $10,000, with the fine amount tripled when the violations are judged to be intentional.

“I have one word for Facebook’s conduct in this case: arrogance,” Ferguson said in a news release. “It intentionally disregarded Washington’s election transparency laws. But that wasn’t enough. Facebook argued in court that those laws should be declared unconstitutional. That’s breathtaking. Where’s the corporate responsibility?”

The Epoch Times has reached out to Meta.

Suing Meta and Judge’s Final Verdict

The attorney general’s office first sued Meta in 2018, following which the California-based tech company agreed to pay $238,000 in fines while committing to uphold transparency in campaign finance and political advertising.

Meta, then Facebook, went on to announce that the company will not be taking ads in Washington. “Starting Dec. 28, Facebook will not accept ads that relate to Washington’s state or local elected officials, candidates, elections, or ballot initiatives while we look to address these new disclosure requirements,” said the company.

But the company continued to take on political ads without the following disclosure laws, which prompted Ferguson to sue again in 2020.

“Meta was aware that its ban would not and did not ban all Washington political advertisements from appearing on its platforms,” King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North said in his ruling (pdf).

North said that “Meta has never fully complied,” and “continued intentionally violating the law from the instant the judgment in the first case was entered.”

The judge said that the company, with 3.64 billion users worldwide and $117 billion in annual revenue, was the “largest social media company in the world,” and nearly 97.5 percent of its revenues, $115 billion, came from digital advertising.

North emphasized that Meta’s “lack of good faith efforts to comply and lack of demonstrated desire to acknowledge and take responsibility for its violations ... including the brazenness of its behavior,” supports the maximum penalty.

“Meta, due to its size and impact, is at the center of much discussion and controversy around election integrity and transparency. In an effort to deflect such controversy, Meta publicly touts the importance of transparency, but then chooses for business and profit reasons to violate the very laws that serve those purposes in Washington State,” said the ruling.

The court imposed the maximum penalty of $10,000 for each violation, amounting to $8,220,000 for 822 violations, which tripled, to a total civil penalty of $24,660,000.