House slates hearing on social media political ad disclosures

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The House will host the first hearing specifically on the need to disclose the sources of political ads online.

Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Information Technology, scheduled the hearing for Tuesday of next week. 

The announcement comes one day after Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) released the Honest Ads Act, which would require online political ads to disclose their funding sources.

{mosads}The bill seeks to reign in the anonymity in online ads that served Russia in what U.S. intelligence agencies believe was a campaign to undermine the 2016 presidential election.

The hearing will feature David Chavern, president and chief executive of the newspaper trade association the News Media Alliance; Allen Dickerson, legal director of the campaign free speech rights group Center for Competitive Politics; communications attorney Jack Goodman; Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive of the advertising trade group the Interactive Advertising Bureau; and Ian Vandewalker, senior counsel of the Brennen Center for Justice.

Facebook, Google, Twitter and Instagram have all acknowledged running political ads placed by a Kremlin-linked “troll farm,” the Internet Research Agency, during the 2016 campaign.

Facebook, Google and Twitter are all slated to testify on the matter at a Nov. 1 hearing on Capitol Hill.

Tags Amy Klobuchar Facebook John McCain Mark Warner Russia Social media Twitter

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