What's new in civic tech: Bipartisan Honest Ads Act targets online political ads
The U.S. Senate has introduced legislation that if passed would mark the federal government’s first major effort to increase transparency for online political advertising.
The bill is called the Honest Ads Act, and it is a bi-partisan effort introduced by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and John McCain, R-Ariz. A press release from Sen. Warner’s office said the lawmakers introduced the bill in order to “help prevent foreign interference in future elections and improve the transparency of online political advertisements.”
“Online political advertising represents an enormous marketplace, and today there is almost no transparency. The Russians realized this, and took advantage in 2016 to spread disinformation and misinformation in an organized effort to divide and distract us,” Warner said in the release. “Our bipartisan Honest Ads Act extends transparency and disclosure to political ads in the digital space. At the end of the day, it is not too much to ask that our most innovative digital companies work with us by exercising additional judgment and providing some transparency.”
Indeed, Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election has been a topic of much discussion in Washington, D.C., with targeted ads on platforms like Facebook and Twitter constituting one small part of a campaign that also allegedly involved massive propagation of made-up news stories and even meddling with members of the Trump campaign. Russian officials have denied any such coordinated effort took place within that country’s government, and President Trump has downplayed the impact of Russian involvement. Facebook announced in September that it would turn the contents of more than 3,000 ads purchased by a Russian agency over to Congress.
If passed, the Honest Ads Act would strengthen disclosure requirements for political ads online by adding paid Internet and digital ads to the Campaign Reform Act of 2002’s definition of electioneering communications, require digital platforms with at least 50,000,000 monthly viewers to maintain a public file of all electioneering communications purchased by a person or group who spends more than $500 total on ads published on their platform, and online platforms to make all reasonable efforts to ensure that foreign individuals and entities are not purchasing political advertisements in order to influence the American electorate.
In the U.S. House of Representatives, companion legislation was introduced by Reps. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and Mike Coffman, R-Colo. The Honest Ads Act has quickly drawn praise online by transparency advocacy groups such as the Sunlight Foundation and others.
By: Zack Quaintance, Theo Douglas
Source: Government Technology