A bill aimed at Facebook's bogus political ads has some big problems

Rob Pegoraro · Contributing Editor

Thu, Oct 26, 2017, 2:12 PM

A new bill is aimed at trying to end fake political ads on sites like Facebook. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

“Honest Ads” may sound like a contradiction, but a bill by that name aims to force some truth into online political marketing.

It wouldn’t require the ads themselves to tell the truth (that’s crazy talk!). But it would require disclosure of who paid for them and, at least as important, who they targeted.

This bipartisan bill is both a belated response to the bout of covert Russian messaging that swept over social networks before last year’s election and an attempt to stop a rerun of that strategy in the 2018 midterms.

But it might not stop other issues, like vaguer appeals to ethnic or religious prejudice or social-media campaigns that don’t rely on paid ads.

An old rule in a new environment

The Honest Ads Act (S. 1989), introduced Oct. 19 by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D.-Minn.), Mark Warner (D.-Va.), and John McCain (R.-Ariz.), would essentially extend longstanding rules for radio and TV political ads to most of the online world.

Just as those offline spots must identify who paid for them (“I’m Rob Pegoraro, and I approve this message.”), this bill and a companion House measure (H.R. 4077) introduced by Reps. Derek Kilmer (D.-Wash.) and Rep. Mike Coffman would demand the same “clear and conspicuous” disclosures.

But the Honest Ads Act would also require any site with more than 50 million monthly U.S. users — yes, this one included — to document all political ads purchased by anybody spending more than $500 a year on “electioneering communication.”

Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner introduced the “Honest Ads Act” to require online firms to disclose sources of political ads, aimed at curbing foreign interference in US elections (AFP Photo/Drew Angerer)

Those records would include the audience targeted by each ad and how many people saw it. And these online platforms would have to make them “available for online public inspection in machine readable format.”

The intended result: forced publicity for “dark posts” that aim to persuade highly specific audiences but which never appear to everybody else.

Those were a frequent tactic of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, but the president has yet to share his take on the bill.

“You have to start somewhere,” said Alexander Howard, deputy director of the Sunlight Foundation, a pro-transparency group that worked with the bill’s sponsors. “This starts somewhere.”

What it won’t or can’t do

But what’s a political ad? The Honest Ads Act keeps the current definition: “a message relating to any political matter of national importance,” which can cover a candidate, an election or “a national legislative issue of public importance.”

State-specific messages might not count, and neither could vague appeals to ethnic or religious ties or blood-and-soil nationalism.

“It leaves some room for interpretation,” Howard said. “The biggest question there is the FEC’s ability to have a credible enforcement action.”