A plan for total transparency around online political ads
Aug 6, 2018, 5:28 AM | Updated: 5:41 am
We’ve been going round and round about Russian meddling for about two years now, and what do we know? We know that the Russians have not successfully meddled with the voting machines, which is good. What they may have succeeded in doing is meddling with our mind. A Russian mind-meddle.
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But that’s also good news because most of us are in control of our minds. All we need is a heads-up so we’re ready.
So how about this? There’s a proposed law called the Honest Ads Act, which says that online political ads have to play by the same rules as broadcast political ads by clearly stating who paid for the ad and who approved the ad.
That way if the disclaimer says “I’m Vladimir Putin and I approve this message” or “Paid for in rubles by Russian trolls working in the Kremlin basement,” you would know to do some checking before believing it.
The Honest Ads Act has yet to come up for a vote, but Facebook says it has voluntarily adopted the rule, and everybody else could do the same.
The other thing would be for political parties – who are presumably patriotic organizations trying to do what’s best for the country even if they disagree on exactly how to get there – to refuse to use hacked information in their attack ads.
Those hackers would just press send again and again and nothing would happen.
It’s cruel, I know – even hackers have to eat – but I hear most of them have a pretty good stash of snacks.
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Tune in to KIRO Newsradio weekdays at 5am for Dave Ross on Seattle's Morning News.
