Thread by @Pinboard

Campaign finance nerds, do you know of a way to track indirect Facebook spending by candidates? In other words, if my campaign committee pays ABC DIGITAL CONSULTING a million dollars and they spend half of that running Facebook ads, is their expenditure a public record?

We seem to be in an uncomfortable situation where the legislators who would potentially regulate Facebook spend heavily on the platform, but the amount of their expenditure is not a matter of public record because it is spent indirectly.

Because indirect expenditures aren't tracked by the FEC, the only source we have for what politicians spend on Facebook is... Facebook. This is part of the larger pattern where only Facebook has the data we would need to make informed decisions about regulating its activities.

A drawback to relying on Facebook's disclosure tools is that Facebook lies all the time about everything.

A better way to think of yesterday's hearing is Facebook explaining itself to its largest customers. The 28 senators in the subcommittee investigating the company have spent at least $21,086,192 on Facebook ads, according to Facebook's reporting tool. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

The numbers Facebook gives vary in interesting ways. Senator Warnock gave Facebook the most money, nearly five million dollars, beating out even those colleagues on the subcommittee who ran for president. John Thune appears to be the lowest spender, having given all of $230.

To choose another example, Jon Ossoff (who is not on the subcommittee that held hearings yesterday) spent $2,775,776 on Facebook ads and won by a margin of about 55,000 votes. How can one expect him to vote to regulate or sanction a company he likely owes his Senate seat to?

The point I'm raising isn't about hypocrisy, but the fundamental conflict of interest that comes from having the only elected officials who can exercise regulatory authority wholly dependent on one company for online political advertising.

Facebook's political ads are a small contributor to revenue (~3% in 2020) but form an invaluable regulatory armor by making American politicians irrespective of party dependent on the continued success of the company's unregulated business model.