In 2012, an estimated $160 million was spent on digital political ads. By 2016, that number had jumped to $1.4 billion. Over the last few decades, a robust system of government rules and regulations has evolved to document the individuals or groups behind political ads on radio and television. The goal is simple: to ensure public disclosure of most political ad spending. However, recent events have shown foreign or rogue agents are willing and able to use digital advertisements to exploit the gaps in US laws. To protect America’s electoral integrity, standard regulations on political advertisements must be applied to online ads.
One prominent worry is the influence of foreign nationals on US elections. Facebook has admitted that Russian entities spent as much as $100,000 in 2016 on nearly 3,000 advertisements backing candidates or taking inflammatory stances on controversial American political issues. The Internet Research Agency, a shadowy Russian organization, devised a strategy to meddle in the 2016 election in which advertisements served an important role.
One notable effort to address these electoral attacks is the Honest Ads Act, a bipartisan Senate bill that would plug several of the legal gaps foreign actors exploited in 2016. The bill would apply existing rules on political advertisements in broadcast and print media to digital advertisements. For example, the act would require for digital platforms such as Facebook or Google to collect information on those who purchase advertisements—something television and radio broadcasters already must do. However, the Honest Ads Act doesn’t go far enough. For one, it fails to expand the timeline for disclosure on electioneering communications beyond the existing 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election. Russian ads were known to be sold as early as June of 2015, making such 30- or 60-day limits toothless.
Another pressing challenge relates to automated or unpaid internet actors, known as bots. Bots are sometimes tools of malicious actors, but automated accounts such as @NYTimes, or @StayWokeBot can spread important information and promote engagement. The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan organization focusing on campaign and election law, says that more research must be done to determine “how political actors spend money to disseminate messages through bots.”
Ideally, digital platforms can play this role. Facebook and Twitter—which received much of the negative press following the election—supported anti-bot and spam measures, but also lobbied to self-impose regulations in lieu of government regulation. As private entities less burdened by bureaucracy, such companies can respond to problems faster than government can, and on issues like dealing with automated users, the companies themselves are best positioned to enact quick fixes. However, there are limits to how much we should rely on private companies.
It’s imperative that the government mandate public disclosure in political advertisements. A multitude of legal requirements exist to ensure disclosure for traditional print and broadcast media. Even in Citizens United v. FEC, a case which loosened federal regulation of campaign finance, the Supreme Court affirmed the importance of disclosing who pays for political advertising: Disclosures give voters the chance to “evaluate the arguments to which they are being subjected” and to “make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”
Facebook now promises to “strengthen enforcement against improper ads” and establish future public disclosure requirements for political ads on the platform. But in 2016, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the idea of Russian influence via Facebook “crazy.” Only after a year of public scrutiny did Facebook reverse course. Twitter, too, only revealed a list of accounts connected to known Russia-controlled Facebook pages after weeks of pressure. Tech companies often struggle to disentangle politics from profit; government agencies, designed to serve the public interest, don’t face the same challenge. Meaningful regulation should naturally come from the latter.
Director Mike Pompeo of the CIA says he has “every expectation” of continued foreign interference in American elections, including in the upcoming 2018 midterm elections. With these threats looming, government regulation is needed to ensure a sufficient standard of action. And while prompt action may mean that private and public involvement coexist today, the most secure preservation of democracy will ultimately come through thoughtful and impartial government intervention.