Twitter has joined Facebook in supporting the Honest Ads Act, a bipartisan Senate bill that would subject online political advertisements to the same disclosure requirements as television and radio ads.
“Twitter is moving forward on our commitment to providing transparency for online ads. We believe the Honest Ads Act provides an appropriate framework for such ads and look forward to working with bill sponsors and others to continue to refine and advance this important proposal,” Twitter said Tuesday through the social media platform’s official public policy account.
Introduced in response to revelations about Russian-paid internet ads displayed to American audiences during the 2016 U.S. presidential race, the bill would amend the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 to make internet ads subject to the same transparency and disclosure rules as television, radio and satellite ads.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his support of the bill last Friday, and on Tuesday he endorsed it during his appearance before the Senate Judiciary and Senate Commerce committees — his first of two high-profile congressional hearings this week convened over concerns involving the world’s largest social-networking service.
Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat and a co-sponsor of the Honest Ads Act, called Twitter’s endorsement a “huge step forward” for the bill and urged Google to follow suit.
“We need to hold tech companies to same rules as everyone else,” tweeted Sen. Amy Klobuchar, an Honest Ads Act co-sponsor who introduced the bill in October along with Mr. Warner and Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican. “Need to hear from @Google,” she tweeted Tuesday.
Neither Google nor Mr. McCain — the lone Republican among the bill’s 22 current co-sponsors — immediately offered comment on Twitter’s announcement.
If passed and implemented, the Honest Ads Act would require digital platforms with an average of 50 million or more unique monthly visitors to keep a public record of all political advertisements bought by a purchaser who spends a total of $500 or more on political ads within a 12-month span, include the content of the ad, its purchaser and the cost.
Facebook, Twitter and Google each acknowledged last year that the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a St. Petersburg-based firm accused of hiring professional social media trolls, abused their platforms to meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential race in tandem with the alleged state-sponsored interference campaign that targeted Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Facebook said that the IRA spent about $100,000 on over 3,000 ads displayed during the 2016 election, and Twitter said that approximately 1.4 million users interacted with content created by 3,814 identified IRA-linked accounts.
“What we’re doing is we’re going to verify the identity of any advertiser who’s running a political or issue-related ad — this is basically what the Honest Ads Act is proposing, and we’re following that,” Mr Zuckerberg told senators Tuesday.”
“We support the Honest Ads Act. We’re implementing it,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.
The Russian government used the IRA, hackers and other bad actors in a bid to disrupt Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, according to the U.S. intelligence community.
Russia has denied meddling in the 2016 race.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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