"Clearly Constitutional"
"Clearly Constitutional"
A judge has rejected Facebook's attempt to strike down Washington State's decades-old political ad transparency law.
Hello! Some of you may be thinking: It’s been a while. It has been! But to those of you who saw this Tweet1 in recent days and became new subscribers…
…welcome! Here’s what you can expect from my newsletter. I’m a journalist and law student, and I was in the courtroom on Friday when King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North ruled against Facebook (now calling itself Meta) in a fascinating case I’ve spent years covering. I’ve stuck with this case because I believe it has interesting implications for digital platform regulation and election transparency. I’m not the only one. As The Washington Post noted in its story about Judge North’s ruling:
The ruling arrives as Meta faces scrutiny over how much information it discloses about the way political candidates use marketing campaigns on its social networks.
It was Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson who filed this lawsuit, partly in response to my reporting on Facebook’s repeated failure to follow the unique law and set of rules in Washington State that require digital platforms to tell the public more about the money trails and targeting decisions behind online election ads. Facebook pushed back, arguing the Washington State law was unconstitutional and should be struck down.
Judge North, as you can see from the Tweet above, issued an oral ruling on Friday declaring Washington’s law to be “very constitutional.” He also declared that Facebook has repeatedly and intentionally violated the law. Ferguson, claiming victory, said: “We defeated Facebook’s cynical attempt to strike down our campaign finance transparency law. On behalf of the people of Washington, I challenge Facebook to accept this decision and do something very simple — follow the law.” Facebook has so far been silent on what it makes of Judge North’s ruling.
But the judge certainly had some things to say in court about Facebook’s behavior and the importance of disclosure laws. He mentioned the “reams and reams of paper” that had accumulated in his chambers relating to this case over the two-plus years it’s been proceeding, and he appeared to have been thinking about the relevant legal issues for quite a while. In perhaps a sign of the hard times for local media—resulting in, among other things, fewer courthouse reporters—I was the only journalist there to hear the judge’s comments. You can read what I heard Judge North say by clicking the Tweet above, or by clicking right here.
If you’ve already read that Twitter thread, here’s what’s coming next: A future ruling from Judge North, at an undetermined date, on how much to potentially fine Facebook and whether a permanent injunction will be issued requiring Facebook to comply with Washington State’s election transparency law. (Based on the arguments at Friday’s hearing, the possible fines for Facebook could range from $300,000 to as much as $7.5 million, but my sense is the fine will likely come out on the lower end.) I’ll let you know what happens and explain how the fine calculation ends up getting made.
I’ll also have a new story to share with you next week.
In the meantime, have a nice long weekend! Whether you’re an old subscriber or a new one, I’m glad you’re on the list and I hope you enjoy this very intermittent, very free, very constitutional newsletter.
During Judge North’s oral ruling on September 2, 2022, something went awry with either my note-taking or my hearing, and I wrote down “very constitutional” instead of what the transcript has Judge North saying: “clearly constitutional.” Apologies for the error, which I’ve corrected in the headline of this post (and which, if Twitter had an edit feature, I’d also correct in the tweet that’s embedded in this post).