In a victory for deregulation, a bipartisan team of commissioners has cleaned up a loosely written plan to unleash a massive wave of rules on political online ads just in time for a vote Thursday by the Federal Election Commission.
Under fire for an earlier proposal to force disclaimers on tiny digital political ads, even those placed for free, commissioners rewrote the rule to honor the agency’s historic support for free speech on the internet. It passed 5-0 this morning.
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Former FEC Chairman Lee Goodman, long a foe of internet regulations, applauded the change. “This revised proposal is an improvement over the previous proposal. The commission can be applauded for resolving the vexing problem of disclaimers on small paid digital ads without expanding regulation over political messages disseminated on the internet for free.”
It was backed by Republican Chairman Allen Dickerson and Democrat Shana Broussard on the six-member panel. After the vote, Dickerson noted the rare bipartisanship on the commission. To Broussard, he said, “It has been a pleasure working with you.”
The actual change to the proposal was tiny, removing two words: “promoted” and “service.” But Goodman and others said the impact was huge.
The earlier language, he said, “could be read to expand the regulation of free online content if a nonprofit organization pays its own staff to disseminate or ‘promote’ the content. Think of a nonprofit organization that posts a political video for free on YouTube while its staff pushes the video out across the internet — all for free. This proposal might regulate that for the first time in history.”
Commissioner Sean Cooksey, a Republican, said the change was needed before the proposal was sent to the full commission.
“I’m pleased the commission is set to adopt a restrained regulatory approach to internet advertisements and will finish this long-overdue work of updating our disclaimer regulations,” he told Secrets.
“I opposed the commission’s initial draft for this final rule, which would have dramatically expanded our agency’s regulation of political speech online. But later revisions scaled back the regulation to cover only traditional paid advertising placed on the internet, while still providing sufficient regulatory flexibility and not unduly burdening freedom of speech. This rule also complies with important procedural safeguards under the Administrative Procedure Act,” he added.
Goodman and Cooksey said that the FEC has succeeded in policing political spending while also promoting free speech on the internet, and they said the rule will continue that practice.
“For more than two decades, the commission has taken a light touch to regulating political activity online. I believe this revised regulation for internet disclaimers is in keeping with that approach and will preserve the internet’s special capacity to foster the exchange of political speech, ideas, and values. I will continue to stand up for Americans’ First Amendment freedoms across all platforms for as long as I am on the commission,” said Cooksey.
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