Washington Supreme Court upholds $35 million penalty against Meta 

OLYMPIA, Wash. (CN) — Washington state’s high court on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling against Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, leaving the social media giant with a $35 million judgment.

Meta Platforms took the case to the state Supreme Court from its start in King County Superior Court, where the social media platform initially lost. The state sued Meta in 2020 over violations of the Fair Campaign Practices Act, arguing it hadn’t provided complete information about political ads in response to requests.

The Superior Court ruled for the state and imposed a $35 million fine for 822 violations. The Washington Court of Appeals upheld the ruling in 2024.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized the important role that disclosure laws play in informing voters about how money is spent to influence elections, finding that exacting scrutiny strikes the appropriate balance between upholding the First Amendment while pursuing the goal of election transparency,” Justice Helen Whitener wrote in the lead opinion.

That “exacting scrutiny” applies in the context of campaign finance disclosure, the justice added. That’s opposed to deferential scrutiny, which provides more leeway.

Whitener noted her colleagues’ dissenting opinion supported deferential scrutiny, though neither Meta nor the state discussed that in their written or oral arguments.

Arguing in October before the high court, Meta had three main points: the act’s regulations violated the First Amendment, the court should reverse the monetary penalty because its calculation was based on a misinterpretation of the law, and the penalty itself should be reversed as it violates the Eighth Amendment.

Washington argued the act focuses on voter education, as information about who’s paying for an ad and who it targets informs voters about whether it’s meant to mobilize people through fear or misinformation.

“According to one expert, the public can properly evaluate the meaning and impact of a political advertisement only by knowing who paid for it, what its content is, and who it targets,” Whitener wrote.

Some platforms opt against allowing political advertisements, as they don’t want to comply with the act. Meta argued the act reduces political speech, but Whitener called that a misconstruction of the law. It’s meant to enable election transparency, not proliferate political ads.

“Washington’s FCPA disclosure requirement is narrowly tailored, and Meta has failed to prove that it is unduly burdensome,” Whitener wrote. “Accordingly, the disclosure law satisfies exacting scrutiny.”

Pivoting to the penalty calculation question, the high court affirmed by default that the lower court got it right.

The lower court imposed the maximum of $10,000 per violation for each of the 822 advertisements included in the requests for information. The total reached over $35 million.

The high court disagreed with Meta’s argument that the calculation should have been based on each request it didn’t respond to, not each ad in the requests. That’s because the legislature intended maximum disclosure, meaning every ad falls under the disclosure requirements.

“The FCPA is intended to be ‘liberally construed’ to allow for maximum disclosure, and a per-advertisement calculation is best aligned with that objective,” Whitener wrote.

Whitener, in the lead opinion, affirmed the calculation. However, a three-justice concurrence/dissent along with a separate three-justice dissent led to no majority opinion. That left the lower court’s decision intact.

On the final issue, the high court found the monetary penalty didn’t violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines.

Whitener wrote that a fine is considered excessive when it’s vastly disproportional to the offense committed.

The justice called Meta a sophisticated, well-resourced platform that willfully violated the law after it had previously faced sanctions for noncompliance. It also showed no good-faith effort to comply with the law.

“This is a major win for election transparency,” Attorney General Nick Brown said in a statement to Courthouse News. “Washington State has strong disclosure laws and they apply to all advertisers who sell political ads — regardless of size. As the lead opinion said, ‘Meta is being penalized for willfully violating the disclosure law at least 822 times.’”

An attorney for Meta couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.