Meta challenges $35 million fine for campaign finance violations in Washington Supreme Court

Social media company Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has asked the Washington state Supreme Court to overturn a $35 million fine for not complying with the state’s campaign finance laws regarding digital advertising.

The law, the company argues, is “overreaching and burdensome” and violates the First Amendment, while the imposed penalty is “extraordinarily excessive” and violates the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits excessive fines. Attorneys representing the state, however, argue that Meta already collects the required information and is choosing not to comply, and that the law is needed to inform voters about who is trying to sway their vote.

Tuesday’s hearing before the state Supreme Court centered around what is believed to be the largest campaign finance fine in U.S. history and a law that Meta, Google and Yahoo say led them to ban political advertising in the state.

“Advertisers, including TV stations and newspapers, have long complied, and this law serves the vital purpose of ensuring that Washingtonians know about efforts to influence their vote,” Deputy Solicitor General Cristina Sepe said Tuesday. “This purpose is even more urgent today, given the targeted and ephemeral nature of digital media. Yet Meta has intentionally, and repeatedly, violated our law.”

Adopted in 1973, the Fair Campaign Practices Act requires campaign advertisers, including social media companies like Facebook, to make information about political ads that run on their platforms available for public inspection in a timely manner upon request.

The law requires digital advertisers to include information relating to the cost of the ad, the sponsor of the ad, as well as targeting and reach information.

During oral arguments Tuesday, justices questioned some of the disclosure requirements included in the law, including the method of payment used to buy the ad. Sepe argued that the use of cryptocurrency, or a foreign currency, to pay for an ad could be weighed by the voter.

Following an investigation by the state’s Public Disclosure Commission, the Attorney General’s Office filed a lawsuit in 2020, alleging the company had violated the law more than 800 times. In October 2022, a King County Superior Court Judge ruled in favor of the state and levied $8.2 million in civil penalties and $3.5 million in attorney fees and costs against Meta. The judge then tripled that amount after he found that the company had intentionally violated the law.

The ruling was upheld by the Washington state Court of Appeals in December 2024.

Former two-term state Attorney General Rob McKenna, who represented Meta Tuesday, asked that the court reverse the imposed fine and find that the law was improperly applied to Meta.

In court filings, attorneys representing the company argued that as a result of other digital advertisers pulling out of the state, the law “effectively shuts down a key forum for core political speech – speech that thrives on digital platforms everywhere else in America.”

McKenna pointed to a similar law in Maryland that a federal court found to be unconstitutional in 2019.

“Maryland’s law required disclosures only in response to requests from the state, covered ads going back just one year, and required ad purchasers to notify platforms that they had posted a covered ad – sparing platforms from being forced to monitor ads to ensure compliance,” Meta’s attorneys wrote in a court filing. “If those burdens were unconstitutional, Washington’s much more burdensome requirements surely are as well.”

The state contends that unlike Maryland’s law, advertisers are not required to publish information about political ads online and that the ruling was narrowly applicable.

There is no timeline for the court to issue rulings, and it could take months.