Meta ordered to cough up US$25m for violating political ad laws

Meta has once again found itself in hot water with the US legal system as it has been ordered to pay close to US$25m to the state of Washington for violating the states law on online political ads.

It's just more bad news for the Facebook parent which is also being hammered today on the share market due to a poor financial forecast. Shares are down almost 20 per cent on after-market trading.

In Seattle, judge Douglass North has ruled that the social media giant will have to pay $24,660,000 for 822 violations of the states’ law mandating transparency in political ads.

According to Judge North, Meta intentionally and repeatedly breached the state’s laws. The state asserted that Meta violated the law repeatedly since December 2018 and committed hundreds of violations.

Washington’s transparency laws require advertising sellers to keep and publicise the names and addresses of those who buy political ads, the targeting of the ad, the payment and the total number of views.

Ad sellers have to provide this information to anyone who asks for it.

Judge North also ordered Facebook to reimburse the Attorney General’s costs and fees, and ordered that those attorneys’ fees should also be tripled “as punitive damages for Meta’s intentional violations of state law.”

That amount will be determined at a later date, but Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office is requesting a total of $10.5 million, which includes the treble damages.

NEWS: Seattle Judge Douglass North has just ordered Meta to pay $24,660,000 to the State of Washington for 822 violations of the state's unusually strong law mandating transparency in online political ads. pic.twitter.com/Wf56iYp3Bt

— Eli Sanders (@elijsanders) October 26, 2022

The court ruled that Meta must pay 12 percent interest per year on the total judgment, starting from when the payments are due. By law, campaign finance penalties go to the State Public Disclosure Transparency Account.

Ferguson commented on the ruling, “I have one word for Facebook’s conduct in this case — arrogance.

“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? I urge Facebook to come to its senses, accept responsibility, apologise for its conduct, and comply with the law. If Facebook refuses to do this, we will beat them again in court.”

At the time of publishing, Meta has not made a public comment on the judgement.