Category Archives: campaigns

Twitter Announces Support for Honest Ads Act—Though It Won’t Help With Much of the Problems with Twitter

April 10, 2018, 9:12 amcampaignsRick Hasen

Twitter is pleased to support the Honest Ads Act. Back in the fall we indicated we supported proposals to increase transparency in political ads. — Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) April 10, 2018 As with troubling foreign content on Facebook… Continue reading

“The Moscow Midterms: How Russia could steal our next election.”

April 9, 2018, 2:03 pmcampaigns, chicaneryRick Hasen

Claire Malone for 538.

“Inside the Decade-Long Russian Campaign to Infiltrate the NRA and Help Elect Trump”

April 8, 2018, 1:02 pmcampaigns, chicaneryRick Hasen

Tom Dickinson deep dive in Rolling Stone.

(How) Will Facebook Self-Regulate “Issue Ads” Intended to Affect U.S. Elections? The Details Matter a Lot

April 7, 2018, 10:18 amcampaignsRick Hasen

Via the NY Times comes news that Facebook will not only support passage of the Honest Ads Act (currently pending in committee where it may stay), but will also self-regulate “issue ads.” The self-regulation is important, because it may be… Continue reading

Final Version of My “Cheap Speech” Paper Now Posted on SSRN

April 1, 2018, 1:12 pmcampaignsRick Hasen

I have posted on SSRN the final version of my paper, Cheap Speech and What It Has Done (to American Democracy), 16 First Amendment Law Review 200 (2018). Here is the abstract: In a remarkably prescient article in a 1995… Continue reading

“Facebook pledges to tighten election security ahead of midterms”

March 29, 2018, 3:10 pmcampaignsRick Hasen

USA Today: Though Facebook is pledging to bring “unprecedented” transparency over political messaging, executives refused to say if Facebook supports proposed federal legislation to regulate political ads on the social network and disclose the identities of those who buy them.… Continue reading

“NRA Says It Receives Foreign Funds, But None Goes To Election Work”

March 27, 2018, 8:44 amcampaign finance, campaignsRick Hasen

NPR: The National Rifle Association acknowledged that it accepts foreign donations but says it does not use them for election work — even as federal investigators look into the role the NRA might have played in Russia’s attack on the… Continue reading

“California Lawmakers Want Twitter Bots Branded With Disclaimers”

March 24, 2018, 8:19 amcampaignsRick Hasen

Motherboard: While Congress has done essentially nothing, many states—including Maryland, New York, and Washington—are drafting regulations that would attempt to reign in bots. In California, two bills—AB 1950 and SB 1001—would force Silicon Valley giants to identify… Continue reading

“Small Donors in Congressional Elections”

March 23, 2018, 8:42 amcampaign finance, campaignsRick Hasen

Tyler Culberson, Michael McDonald, and Suzanne Robbins have written this article for American Politics Research. Here is the abstract: Candidates raise substantial sums of money to compete in federal elections. Scholars and election observers are concerned by potential corruption related… Continue reading

“U.S. companies are pressuring their workers on how to lobby and vote”

March 21, 2018, 8:17 amcampaignsRick Hasen

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez for The Monkey Cage: .S. businesses are cultivating a new political resource: their own workers. When Republicans wrote their tax bill late last year, many companies pushed their employees to support specific policy provisions and to… Continue reading

DNC Sells “I Will Vote” Shirt to Wear to the Polls: Would It Violate Minnesota’s Ordinance in Mansky Case Pending Before SCOTUS?

March 21, 2018, 8:09 amcampaignsRick Hasen

Would this count as illegal political apparel?

“Facebook’s Role in Data Misuse Sets Off a Storm on Two Continents”

March 18, 2018, 8:19 pmcampaigns, chicaneryRick Hasen

NYT: American and British lawmakers demanded on Sunday that Facebook explain how a political data firm with links to President Trump’s 2016 campaign was able to harvest private information from more than 50 million Facebook profiles without the social network’s… Continue reading

Today’s Must-Read: “How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions”

March 17, 2018, 2:20 pmcampaign finance, campaigns, chicaneryRick Hasen

NYT: As the upstart voter-profiling company Cambridge Analytica prepared to wade into the 2014 American midterm elections, it had a problem. The firm had secured a $15 million investment from Robert Mercer, the wealthy Republican donor, and wooed his… Continue reading