There's no election law about social media disclosures — but there oughta be

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg broke no law when he paid campaign workers $2,500 a month to promote his candidacy from their personal social media accounts without requiring them to disclose this sponsorship. After Twitter suspended 70 of these accounts for “platform manipulation,” his campaign voluntarily asked its workers to identify themselves on their social media accounts. As the newspaper comic strip used to say, there oughta be a law! The Federal Elections Commission does, and its current rules for social media companies do not require campaign influencer disclosures. Congress can fix this, and at the same time close other social media loopholes that threaten the integrity of our electoral process.  

[Mark MacCarthy is senior fellow at the Institute for Technology Law and Policy at Georgetown Law.  Previously, he was senior vice president for public policy at the Software & Information Industry Association.]