Fraud is already a crime. And in most cases, prosecution comes after a crime is committed. Forcing independent organizations to pre-police is generally a bad idea. It's a good idea for them to do it, it's a bad idea to use threat of force (government) to do.

In the end, I do know several third party candidates that had a lot of trouble posting genuine ads... so there's a bit of a problem all around.

> Forcing independent organizations to pre-police is generally a bad idea.

It's worked pretty well for discriminatory housing ads.

Because you can tell from the ad choice that it is discrinatory, and you cannot abet a crime knowingly.

With political ads? What is the crime being committed? If it is fraud, then we make it illegal to place an ad without rendering your ID, like with a bank account.

How so? Is craigslist required to pre-screen housing ads? I don't think so. The ads themselves are illegal, but there's no legal requirement to pre-screen that I'm aware of.

Online outlets have a specific exemption for user-created content (https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legal); print outlets do, indeed, have to pre-screen ads and that's worked very well.

Even for tech companies, that exemption is limited; Craigslist got an exemption, but Roommates.com didn't because of the level to which its platform actively encouraged discriminating on prohibited categories.

Facebook is even now being pursued by HUD over its own tools allowing housing ads to be targeted by race, gender, ZIP code, or disability. https://www.npr.org/2018/08/19/640002304/hud-hits-facebook-f...

>Forcing independent organizations to pre-police is generally a bad idea. It's a good idea for them to do it, it's a bad idea to use threat of force (government) to do.

The financial industry as well as many others say hi.

That you need to ask the question sort of implies that there is 0 value to Facebook in catching that they were defrauded - if thats right, then there's nothing wrong with regulation. If Facebook doesn't have the ability to determine who is running ads, then I agree with the GP that political ads should be banned on Facebook altogether.

I'm sorry, we make people show ID to buy cigarettes and beer - mass political advertising needs SOME sort of regulation.

The ads never ran. There was no fraud, since was no intent to earn money from Facebook.

Lying, in and of itself, is not illegal. While that may be unfortunate, that is also true. So to speak :)