S. 1989 (115^th): Honest Ads Act

On January 6, 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a report titled Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. Presidential election …. Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operation—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, State-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or trolls.

On November 24, 2016, the Washington Post reported findings from 2 teams of independent researchers that concluded Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment … as part of a broadly effective strategy of sowing distrust in U.S. democracy and its leaders..

Findings from a 2017 study on the manipulation of public opinion through social media conducted by the Computational Propaganda Research Project at the Oxford Internet Institute found that the Kremlin is using pro-Russian bots to manipulate public discourse to a highly targeted audience. With a sample of nearly 1,300,000 tweets, researchers found that in the 2016 election’s 3 decisive States, propaganda constituted 40 percent of the sampled election-related tweets that went to Pennsylvanians, 34 percent to Michigan voters, and 30 percent to those in Wisconsin. In other swing States, the figure reached 42 percent in Missouri, 41 percent in Florida, 40 percent in North Carolina, 38 percent in Colorado, and 35 percent in Ohio.

On September 6, 2017, the Nation’s largest social media platform disclosed that between June 2015 and May 2017, Russian entities purchased $100,000 in political advertisements, publishing roughly 3,000 ads linked to fake accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency, a pro-Kremlin organization. According to the company, the ads purchased focused on amplifying divisive social and political messages ….

In 2002, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act became law, establishing disclosure requirements for political advertisements distributed from a television or radio broadcast station or provider of cable or satellite television. In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld regulations on electioneering communications established under the Act, noting that such requirements provide the electorate with information and insure that the voters are fully informed about the person or group who is speaking..

According to a study from Borrell Associates, in 2016, $1,415,000,000 was spent on online advertising, more than quadruple the amount in 2012.

The reach of a few large internet platforms—larger than any broadcast, satellite, or cable provider—has greatly facilitated the scope and effectiveness of disinformation campaigns. For instance, the largest platform has over 210,000,000 American users—over 160,000,000 of them on a daily basis. By contrast, the largest cable television provider has 22,430,000 subscribers, while the largest satellite television provider has 21,000,000 subscribers. And the most-watched television broadcast in U.S. history had 118,000,000 viewers.

The public nature of broadcast television, radio, and satellite ensures a level of publicity for any political advertisement. These communications are accessible to the press, fact-checkers, and political opponents; this creates strong disincentives for a candidate to disseminate materially false, inflammatory, or contradictory messages to the public. Social media platforms, in contrast, can target portions of the electorate with direct, ephemeral advertisements often on the basis of private information the platform has on individuals, enabling political advertisements that are contradictory, racially or socially inflammatory, or materially false.

According to comScore, 2 companies own 8 of the 10 most popular smartphone applications as of June 2017, including the most popular social media and email services—which deliver information and news to users without requiring proactivity by the user. Those same 2 companies accounted for 99 percent of revenue growth from digital advertising in 2016, including 77 percent of gross spending. 79 percent of online Americans—representing 68 percent of all Americans—use the single largest social network, while 66 percent of these users are most likely to get their news from that site.

In its 2006 rulemaking, the Federal Election Commission noted that only 18 percent of all Americans cited the internet as their leading source of news about the 2004 Presidential election; by contrast, the Pew Research Center found that 65 percent of Americans identified an internet-based source as their leading source of information for the 2016 election.

The Federal Election Commission, the independent Federal agency charged with protecting the integrity of the Federal campaign finance process by providing transparency and administering campaign finance laws, has failed to take action to address online political advertisements.

In testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence titled, Disinformation: A Primer in Russian Active Measures and Influence Campaigns, multiple expert witnesses testified that while the disinformation tactics of foreign adversaries have not necessarily changed, social media services now provide platform[s] practically purpose-built for active measures[.] Similarly, as Gen. (RET) Keith B. Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency, testified, during the Cold War if the Soviet Union sought to manipulate information flow, it would have to do so principally through its own propaganda outlets or through active measures that would generate specific news: planting of leaflets, inciting of violence, creation of other false materials and narratives. But the news itself was hard to manipulate because it would have required actual control of the organs of media, which took long-term efforts to penetrate. Today, however, because the clear majority of the information on social media sites is uncurated and there is a rapid proliferation of information sources and other sites that can reinforce information, there is an increasing likelihood that the information available to average consumers may be inaccurate (whether intentionally or otherwise) and may be more easily manipulable than in prior eras..

Current regulations on political advertisements do not provide sufficient transparency to uphold the public’s right to be fully informed about political advertisements made online.

the dramatic increase in digital political advertisements, and the growing centrality of online platforms in the lives of Americans, requires the Congress and the Federal Election Commission to take meaningful action to ensure that laws and regulations provide the accountability and transparency that is fundamental to our democracy;

free and fair elections require both transparency and accountability which give the public a right to know the true sources of funding for political advertisements in order to make informed political choices and hold elected officials accountable; and

transparency of funding for political advertisements is essential to enforce other campaign finance laws, including the prohibition on campaign spending by foreign nationals.