In the quarter leading up to a Nov 1 congressional testimony on Russian election interference, tech giants Google ($GOOG), Facebook ($FB), and Twitter ($TWTR) have been dropping millions on lobbyists while under increased regulatory scrutiny from Washington, according to government documents.
CNBC reports:
The disclosures, required by the Lobbying Disclosure Act, revealed Google spent $4.17 million lobbying Congress this most recent quarter. Facebook spent $2.85 million, while Twitter spent $120,000. The figures were first reported by Bloomberg News.
Last quarter Google spent $5.93 million lobbying lawmakers, while Facebook and Twitter spent $2.38 million and $120,000 respectively.
The Silicon Valley behemoths are sending lawyers to U.S. congressional committees Nov 1 to testify on Russian political ads bought during the 2016 election.
On October 19, three senators — Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Mark Warner, D-Va., and John McCain, R-Ariz. — co-sponsored the bi-partisan “Honest Ads Act,” which would require heavy disclaimers and disclosures to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for online political ads. Platforms with 50 million or more unique monthly users would have to keep a public database of political ads, and the companies would have to make “reasonable” efforts to prevent foreign nations from interfering with U.S. elections through ads, according to CNBC.
Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and Apple also spent close to $10 million lobbying Congress last quarter.
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No way. Silicon Valley is not the Deep State. They are deep Anal.
What a waste of millions of dollars spent ineffectively by hiring local lobbying groups. They should outsource this job to Russians who can elect prezidents with mere $100K worth of well placed strategic ads.