By Julie Bykowicz
As the probes of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential
election turn to the role of social-media giants, Facebook is
looking to boost its influence in Washington amid talk of potential
federal regulation.
The Menlo Park, Calif., company has invested more than $8.4
million this year on its 36-member federal lobbying team -- putting
it on track to spend more on federal lobbying than in any previous
year. The company recently added Republican-led Hamilton Place
Strategies and other communications strategists to its team and
posted an ad seeking a crisis communications specialist.
The tech giant also held several focus-group sessions last week
hosted by Quadrant Strategies, a Democratic-led research firm.
People familiar with the sessions said public relations
professionals and other Washington insiders were among the
attendees. Facebook was soliciting advice as to how best to respond
to the Russia ad controversy -- and how to communicate with
Republicans in particular, the people said.
Proposed messaging strategies appeared to highlight the
company's desire to fix any problems on its own rather than through
regulation, the people said. Among the test messages were "we're
not a news organization" and "we can combat the problems with
automated buys with other automated tools." Facebook drew criticism
during the 2016 campaign for fabricated news reports that appeared
in users' news feeds. And last month, the company disclosed that it
had sold political ads to Russian entities that wanted to help
elect President Donald Trump during last year's campaign.
Democrats are now leading the charge to force technology
companies to disclose more about who is buying political ads on
their sites.
Lawmakers and special counsel Robert Mueller are investigating
U.S. intelligence agencies' findings that Russia interfered in the
election and whether Trump associates colluded in that effort. Mr.
Trump has denied any collusion by him or any associates and Russia
has said it didn't interfere in the election.
Executives of Facebook, Twitter and Google have been called to
appear before three congressional panels next week: the Senate
Judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism on Tuesday, followed
by back-to-back appearances in front of the Senate and House
intelligence committees a day later.
Facebook says it is cooperating with both the Russia probes and
with separate efforts by lawmakers and federal regulators who
considering whether to require more regulation of online political
advertising. "We stand with lawmakers to achieve transparency in
political advertising," said Erin Egan, Facebook's vice president
for U.S. public policy. She added: "We work across the political
spectrum."
Silicon Valley companies can appear to predominantly favor
Democrats, based on the campaign contributions of their employees
and the favored politicians of their leaders, but they have adapted
in the past few years to a Republican-led Washington.
When Facebook opened its Washington office almost a decade ago
under the leadership of a former American Civil Liberties Union
lawyer, it had a $200,000 lobbying budget and its employees made a
few thousand dollars' worth of federal political contributions each
year, all to Democrats, according to federal lobbying records.
Although Facebook employees -- including Chief Executive Officer
Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg --
still donate mostly to Democrats, the company tries to balance that
by giving more heavily to Republicans through its corporate
political committee, according to the Federal Election Commission
reports.
And Joel Kaplan, a former policy adviser to President George W.
Bush, oversees an army of in-house lobbyists and those contracted
at eight outside firms.
The company's highest-paid outside lobbying firm, Subject
Matter, added to its Facebook roster Ed Kutler, once an adviser to
former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump confidant. In the
spring, Facebook brought in as a policy team member Sandy Luff, a
former top aide to now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Over the years, Facebook also has developed relationships with
Republicans and Democrats alike by working closely with politicians
to help them communicate with voters and constituents on Facebook,
showing them how to use tools such as advertising to maximize their
reach.
When Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter recently that Facebook was on
Democrat Hillary Clinton's "side, not mine!" Andrew Bosworth, who
until recently was the company's vice president of advertising,
responded in a tweet: "We offered identical support to both the
Trump and Clinton campaigns, and had teams assigned to both.
Everyone had access to the same tools."
Mr. Trump's campaign took advantage of the offer, strategizing
with a Facebook representative at about how to reach and persuade
the most voters possible.
And when there was a recent uproar over former Facebook
employees' claims in media reports that its "trending topics" news
feature sometimes suppressed conservative voices, Mr. Zuckerberg
met with conservative television commentators and Republican
strategists at Facebook's headquarters. The company undertook an
internal review and said it found no evidence of "systemic bias"
but outlined ways it would rework the way Facebook curates
news.
Republicans point to the way the company handled the "trending
topics" controversy as evidence that they can work with
Facebook.
"As a tech company, they're one of the few that goes out of
their way to be neutral," said Barry Bennett, a former Trump
campaign adviser who attended Mr. Zuckerberg's gathering.
Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.), chairman of the Senate panel that
oversees most tech policy, said he was pleased with how Facebook
responded to the trending topics questions, saying he was satisfied
with the answers and that "transparency -- not regulation --
remains the goal."
Facebook was swept into the Russia election-meddling
investigations when it disclosed early last month that it sold
$100,000 worth of political ads to "inauthentic" Kremlin-linked
accounts. Those ads, touting Trump, disparaging Democratic opponent
Hillary Clinton and stoking political and cultural divisions, were
viewed by an estimated 10 million Facebook users, according to the
company.
Facebook officials said they have turned over to Congress the
3,000 ads in question and underlying data about the groups of
Americans targeted by the messaging. Lawmakers say they will
eventually make the ads public.
Twitter, which is also being investigated as part of the Russian
interference probe, announced this week it, too, would voluntarily
begin disclosing more advertising information.
A recent Marist poll found that 64% of Americans think campaign
advertisements on social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter
should be regulated.
Danielle Citron, a University of Maryland law professor who
assists Facebook, Twitter and other companies in developing their
privacy policies, said that like automobiles and railroads in
earlier generations, the tech industry has matured to the point of
needing stronger regulation.
--John McKinnon, Deepa Seetharaman and Byron Tau contributed to
this article.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 26, 2017 15:11 ET (19:11 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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