SEATTLE (AP) - Washington’s campaign finance watchdog on Thursday rejected a settlement that its staff had negotiated with Facebook over charges the social media giant has repeatedly violated state campaign finance law.
The Seattle Times reports that instead of accepting the settlement - a proposed $75,000 fine and no admission of guilt - the Washington Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) referred the matter to Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson for further investigation.
It’s the second time in a little more than a year that Ferguson’s office will look into Facebook for allegedly violating Washington’s laws on political advertising transparency. In December 2018, after Ferguson filed a lawsuit against Facebook for the same type of violations, Facebook agreed to a $200,000 fine.
Facebook and fellow tech behemoth Google both pledged to stop accepting local political ads in Washington after they were accused of running afoul of state law, which requires ad sellers to disclose specific information on the names and addresses of people who buy ads, who ads target and the total number of views of each ad. Newspapers and TV and radio stations have long complied with these requirements.
But both companies have continued to sell political ads in Washington.
Facebook has said it tries to filter out local political ads in Washington and remove them when it finds them.
“It is our intent to comply with Washington statute to the maximum extent that we can,” Winn Allen, Facebook’s lawyer, told the PDC. “I cannot guarantee you that the PDC will always view Facebook’s responses in 100% compliance.”
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