Facing South: Will Congress close the loophole that enabled Facebook’s Russian ad scandal?
By Sue Sturgis
The first peer-reviewed research into ads bought on Facebook to influence the 2016 U.S. elections has been published, and its findings shed light on an increasingly important but largely unregulated corner of politics…
Election watchdogs are pointing to the study’s findings to build the case for the Honest Ads Act…
[W]hen Congress held hearings last year on online political ads following the bill’s introduction, the Institute for Free Speech (IFS, formerly known as the Center for Competitive Politics) testified against the legislation. The Alexandria, Virginia-based nonprofit generally opposes campaign finance transparency on First Amendment grounds. For example, IFS represented the plaintiffs in SpeechNow.org v. FEC, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave rise to super PACS – spending committees that can take unlimited donations from corporations, unions, associations, and individuals.
IFS was founded by former Republican FEC commissioner Bradley Smith. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, now the majority leader, recommended Smith for the FEC post, and he was nominated by President Clinton and eventually approved by the Senate despite his controversial deregulatory views. Meanwhile, McConnell has expressed skepticism about the Honest Ads Act, which he said “would mostly penalize American citizens trying to use the internet and to advertise.”
