WA Judge Orders Meta To Pay $24.6M Campaign Finance Fine

SEATTLE — Facebook's parent company, Meta, must pay Washington nearly $25 million in fines stemming from a 2020 lawsuit alleging the company intentionally broke state campaign finance laws hundreds of times, a King County judge ruled Wednesday.

Washington's campaign finance disclosure law, on the books since the 1970s, requires advertisers to keep detailed records and make information on political ads publicly available, including details about costs, sponsors, targeting and reach. The state argued Facebook's Ad Library failed to comply with the requirements and that Meta knowingly violated the law more than 800 times since December 2018.

Meta asked the court to strike down a key section of the decades-old law, which proved unsuccessful, and King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North granted Washington a summary judgment without a trial in early September.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson's office asked North to levy the maximum fine of $30,000 per violation. On Wednesday, the judge agreed and ordered Meta to pay $24,660,000, plus interest, in addition to reimbursing the state for triple its costs and fees. Altogether, Ferguson's office is seeking another $10.5 million.

According to the state, the penalty is the largest recorded for campaign finance violations anywhere in the nation.

“I have one word for Facebook’s conduct in this case — arrogance,” Ferguson said in a statement Wednesday. “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, apologize for its conduct, and comply with the law. If Facebook refuses to do this, we will beat them again in court.”