On Wednesday, a Washington state judge fined Meta $24.7 million for 822 violations of the Political Advertising Disclosure and Campaign Finance Transparency Act. In 2018, Facebook's parent company committed this same breach and paid $238,000 in fines.
Under this law, ad sellers such as Meta are required to make certain things public, (upon request) such as the names and addresses of those who purchase political ads, the purpose of those ads, how the ads were paid for, and the total number of views of each ad.
The sanction imposed by King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North is the maximum sanction allowed. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who sued Mark Zuckerberg's company in 2018, said Meta was fined the maximum amount for committing this violation repeatedly and intentionally:
I have one word for Facebook's conduct in this case — arrogance. 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?
Each violation of this law is punishable by $10,000. But, due to its repetition and intentionality, Facebook will pay $30,000 for each of its violations, bringing the total penalty to $24.7 million.
Facebook announced that it would stop publishing political advertisements
After being sued by prosecutor Ferguson in 2018, Facebook said it would abide by the transparency law. Some time later, it announced that it would stop publishing political advertisements instead of respecting the law. But this was not the case.
Facebook continued to sell political and election advertising and Ferguson again denounced them, "Meta was aware that its announced 'ban' would not, and did not, prevent all such advertising from continuing to appear on its platform."
Meta's revenues and shares plunge
This sanction comes at a bad financial time for Meta. Its net income and share price have plummeted as Mark Zuckerberg's company continues to increase its expenses.
For the quarter ended September 30, Meta reported net income of $4.4 billion, down 52% from the same period in 2021. In the first nine months of the year, total net profits also plummeted by 37% year-on-year: from making $29 billion of profit in 2021 to $18.5 billion this year.
The value of its shares also declined. In the third quarter of last year, Meta shares were worth $327. Its share price is now $164 down almost 50%.
Despite these slumps, Mark Zuckerberg continues to increase the company's expenses. From January 1 through September 30, Meta's CEO spent $61.8 billion, $11.8 billion more than in the same period last year.
