I’m not sure people realize the importance of Washington winning its latest lawsuit against Meta, the social media titan that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

Potentially at stake are laws enabling the public to know who is influencing elections in Washington and other states.

Rather than comply with Washington’s law requiring disclosure of political ad spending, Meta chose to attack the transparency law’s legitimacy.

Fortunately Meta keeps losing.

A resounding defeat in the state Court of Appeals, which eviscerated Meta’s case in a ruling published last Monday, should be the end of it.

But Meta can be pugilistic when told to follow the rules, as we’ve seen in places that ordered the company to compensate news publishers for the use of their stories.

Instead of complying with Canada’s Online News Act, Meta last year blocked Canadians’ access to news on Facebook and Instagram, hurting both customers and online publishers who built their companies on its platforms.

Meta could continue fighting Washington all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, potentially undermining the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act and similar laws in other states.

All because Meta thinks it’s a hassle to share details of what political campaigns are spending on its sites, as the law requires.

“Their defense was challenging the constitutionality of the law … and once you’re doing that, you know, you are opening a big can of worms,” Washington Attorney General and Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson said in an interview.

This began as a straightforward case, forcing Meta to follow standard rules requiring media to disclose campaign ad sales.

Violations of these rules happen all the time, often unintentionally. Usually rule-breakers say oops, correct the mistake and move on.

Meta did that initially. After Ferguson sued in 2018, Meta paid a $200,000 penalty and said it would comply by ceasing to sell political ads in Washington.

Then the company went back on its word and willfully violated the law, again and again.

Around 1,600 political ads were sold on its platforms in Washington in 2019 and the company again failed to share details of this campaign spending with the public, as required.

When Ferguson brought Meta to court, the company and its attorneys chose a nuclear option.

They not only argued that Meta was innocent, they attacked the legal underpinnings of the law. They argued, among other things, that it infringed on Meta’s First Amendment rights and that the company was immunized by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

In other words, Meta chose to blow up the state’s campaign transparency law rather than follow it.

Ferguson said Meta is entitled to its defense but it’s frustrating that a sophisticated company and its top-shelf attorneys made that choice.

“I just never really understood what Meta was trying to accomplish here,” he said. “I mean, rather than working with us to, you know, find a solution, it was literally attack the constitutionality of an important law that supports transparency in our elections.”

Fortunately the Court of Appeals recognized what’s at stake, saw through the arguments and blew up Meta’s case instead.

The ruling, penned by Judge J. Michael Diaz, opens with a quote from a federal case: “(A) well-informed electorate is as vital to the survival of a democracy as air is to the survival of human life.”

It repeatedly made this point, directly and with other citations.

The court also upheld what the state Public Disclosure Commission described as the largest fine in U.S. history for campaign violations: $24.6 million in penalties plus $10.5 million for the state’s legal fees, after trebling for intentional violations.

The penalties could be lowered, however. The previous record penalty, $18 million against the Grocery Manufacturers Association that Ferguson sued in 2013 for campaign reporting violations, was reduced in a 2022 settlement. Ferguson agreed to a $9 million fine and the association dropped its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Meta did not make a representative available for an interview but shared a statement suggesting that it may keep fighting:

“We disagree with this ruling and are assessing next steps. We offer more transparency into political advertising than TV, radio or any other digital advertising platform.”

That’s cleverly worded. The issue isn’t the quantity of what Meta discloses, it’s whether Meta shares what’s required, and as required, by state law.

The law requires companies running political ads to keep timely, detailed records of the ad spending and make them available within a day or two if someone wants to see them.

Other media companies, with far fewer resources, have followed these rules and borne the paperwork costs for decades.

But Meta, which is now valued at $1.5 trillion, argued that this is too much of a burden.

The court was unconvinced. It also agreed with the state that there’s substantial government interest in “the need to timely inform the electorate about who is expending money to influence an election in our state and how that money is being spent.”

By strongly affirming the need for the public to have prompt access to these records, the ruling also helps make the case for a separate issue Ferguson’s office is handling. A coalition of media companies asked it to update model public-records rules to make clear that state law requires prompt, timely disclosure.

I asked Ferguson if the ruling also strengthens the state’s Public Records and Open Public Meetings acts, or sends a message to those would challenge them.

“It does two things: Reinforce those laws, but also serve as a deterrent to those who want to violate them,” he said.

The case is also an example of how news organizations need government intervention to help level the playing field with dominant tech companies. It’s hard to compete with giants but not impossible, unless they ignore the rules.

Ferguson noted this in our interview and a news release announcing the ruling.

“I think that whether you are a small town newspaper or you’re a big corporation, Meta, you’ve got to play by the same rules,” he said. “Because guess what, that small town newspaper, to your point, has the cost and needs to keep those records available and make them available to the public when asked.”

Ferguson said newspapers are complying, as evidenced by the lack of complaints so far to his office and the Public Disclosure Commission, while “the biggest corporation, with the most resources, it’s just too arrogant to follow the rules.”

“Newspapers are trying to get by right now, right?” he continued. “Meta’s got all the resources in the world. Instead of putting those resources to follow the law, they spend millions of dollars trying to have the law declared unconstitutional. It drives me crazy.”

Me too.

Instead of pursuing a Phyrrhic victory that would raise serious questions about Meta’s values and corporate citizenship, the company should negotiate a settlement and end this tortured case.

Unrepentant, repeat offenders don’t deserve a generous break.

But a lower penalty is preferable to the risk, however small, of weakening transparency laws and making citizens less informed about who is influencing their elections.

This is excerpted from the free, weekly Voices for a Free Press newsletter. Sign up to receive it at the Save the Free Press website, st.news/SavetheFreePress. Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley is the editor of the Free Press Initiative, which aims to inform the public about issues facing newspapers, local news coverage, and a free press. You can learn more about the Free Press Initiative, or sign up for a newsletter, at https://company.seattletimes.com/save-the-free-press/.