FEC eyes regulations on online political ads

Democrats on the Federal Election Commission want to extend the agency’s reach to online political ads, a change in policy that critics fear could lead to tough new limits on online speech.

On Oct 24, the FEC deadlocked 3-3 on whether or not to investigate Checks and Balances for Economic Growth, a group that ran a pair of online advertisements attacking President Barack Obama and Sen Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in 2012. While the organization may have spent close to a million dollars on the ads, it did not file any disclosure reports with the FEC, as it would have if the ads had been run on television or the radio. The carve-out for online-only communications in the FEC’s rules, known as the “Internet exemption,” has existed for more than eight years to make sure political blog posts, websites, social media updates and YouTube videos are not regulated. But Vice Chairwoman Ann Ravel, a Democrat, said that the rules have not kept pace with the changing times.