Twitter To Pay WA $100,000 For Campaign Finance Violations

WASHINGTON — Twitter will be paying $100,00 to the state of Washington for failing to follow campaign disclosure requirements.

Between 2012 and 2019, Twitter received $194,550 for political ads supporting at least 38 Washington candidates. However, according to the state Attorney General's Office, Twitter failed to maintain full records for those ads— records that are required under Washington state's campaign finance laws. Attorney General Bob Ferguson says, those records are required so that the public can see who is paying for political ads and how.

“Transparency in political advertising is critical to a free and informed electorate,” Ferguson said. “Whether you are a local newspaper or a multinational social media platform, you must follow our campaign finance laws.”

Campaign finance law in Washington requires advertisers to keep track of all the following information on ads they sell:

• The name of the candidate or measure that the ad supports or attacks.
• The dates the ads were shown or broadcast.
• The name and address of the person who sponsored the ad.
• The total cost of the ad, and who paid for it (if it is someone other than the sponsor) and how they paid for it.

Those requirements have been in place for nearly 50 years, passed by Washington voters through an initiative in 1972.

"The people of Washington, in their overwhelming vote for the disclosure Initiative 276 nearly a half-century ago, created one of the nation’s most emphatic demands for transparency and accountability in campaign finance reporting," Public Disclosure Commission Chair David Ammons said. "As powerful new platforms and commercial advertisers emerge in the campaign world, we must stay vigilant in demanding full compliance with all disclosure laws of Washington state."

Washington first received word that Twitter may have violated those record requirements in October 2019, when an independent researcher noticed the issue and reported it to the state Public Disclosure Commission. The researcher had been trying to request records of political advertisements relating to 12 Washington campaigns, but Twitter failed to provide them for more than two months. The Public Disclosure Commission investigated further, and determined that Twitter may have violated the law, and contacted the Attorney General's Office for litigation.

This is not the first time the state has sued a social media platform for breaking advertising regulations. In 2018, Google and Facebook paid $200,000 each to resolve lawsuits for similar failures to maintain political advertising records. Another suit against Facebook, filed in April, alleges that Facebook is intentionally violating public records laws to hide how much they're receiving from political campaigns. If Washington wins that suit, Facebook could receive triple campaign finance penalties for intentionally breaking the law.