Judge rejected Facebook’s attempt, declaring Washington state campaign ad law unconstitutional

In Seattle, A judge sided with Washington state’s attorney general on Friday and rejects Facebook parent company Meta’s argument that the state’s campaign law is running afoul of the First Amendment.

Ruling from the bench after a hearing, King County Superior Court Judge Douglass A. North found that Facebook has intentionally breached the Washington state law, says Attorney General Bob Ferguson in a tweet after the ruling.

Eli Sanders, a Seattle journalist who covered the dispute for years for The Stranger newspaper reports that the judge will now be considering fines and a possible injunction against the social media giant.

In court filings, Meta called Washington state an outlier to argue that the disclosure law breaches the First Amendment by unfairly targeting political speech, and imposing heavy timelines for revealing what Meta considers unreasonable degrees of detail to people who are requesting information regarding political ads, GeekWire reports.

According to Meta, Facebook has stopped serving ads for campaigns in the state after determining that the company won’t be able to reasonably comply with the law.

Meta’s products and services include Facebook, Messenger, Facebook Watch, and Meta Portal. It also acquires Oculus, Giphy, Mapillary, Kustomer, Presize and has a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms. In 2021, the company had generated 97.5% of its revenue from the sale of advertising.