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A U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington on Tuesday overturned a decision requiring organizations that run election-related television ads to reveal their funders, saying a lower court erred in finding that Congress intended to require such disclosure — a victory for some of the biggest groups participating in the 2012 campaign.

In an unsigned decision, the three-judge panel wrote that it was “doubtful” that Congress anticipated how campaign finance rules would change and sent the case back to the lower court for further review.

But for the remainder of this election the ruling lets up the pressure on GOP-allied organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity and Crossroads GPS, which changed their ad strategies after a federal judge ruled this spring that Congress intended such groups to disclose their donors.

INTERACTIVE: Spending during the 2012 election

“We’re just delighted,” said Thomas Kirby, an attorney for the Center for Individual Freedom, one of two groups that pursued an appeal of the case. “CFIF believes that the right to engage in political speech should not be needlessly conditioned upon the loss of anonymity.”

Rep. Christopher Van Hollen (D-Md.), who brought the original case against the Federal Election Commission that upheld the donor disclosure requirement, issued a statement saying the appellate decision “struck a blow against transparency in the funding of political campaigns.”

“The Court of Appeals’ decision today will keep the American people, for the time being, in the dark about who is attempting to influence their vote with secret money,” he added.

The case hinges on the FEC’s interpretation of the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act, a landmark campaign finance reform measure that, among other things, required groups that engage in “electioneering communications” to reveal all their contributors.

Five years later, the FEC issued a rule stating that such organizations only had to reveal the donors who gave for the purpose of financing TV ads.

Van Hollen — backed by lawyers from the campaign finance reform organizations Democracy 21, Public Citizen, Campaign Legal Center and the law firm WilmerHale — sued the FEC, arguing that the rule created a major loophole that undermined the intent of the McCain-Feingold Act. A federal judge agreed, ruling on March 30 that the FEC had overstepped its authority.

“Congress intended to shine light on whoever was behind the communications bombarding voters immediately prior to elections,” Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote in her decision.

Her ruling threw out the 2007 rule and reinstated a 2003 FEC regulation that required organizations doing electioneering to report all donations of $1,000 or more dating back to the first day of the preceding year.

That triggered a scramble among politically active groups on the right that have been fighting efforts to force them to reveal their funders. Despite the fact that they are organized as nonprofit social welfare organizations – or, in the case of the Chamber, as a trade group — the groups began running explicitly political ads, taking advantage of the conflicting patchwork of campaign finance rules that did not require disclosure of those doing “express advocacy.”

That move came with its own risk: paying for overtly political spots could jeopardize their tax status.

INTERACTIVE: Battleground states map

Such a tactic is no longer necessary after Tuesday’s ruling by the appellate court, which declared that the McCain-Feingold Act is “anything but clear” in light of major court cases that have followed it, including the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United.

The panel chided the FEC for not clearly dealing with the changes in the law or defending its stance in court. The appellate court sent the case back to the lower court, ordering it to refer the matter back to the FEC to defend its current rules or issue new ones.

But with the FEC locked in partisan gridlock, it remains unclear whether the six commissioners will be able to come to agreement on how to proceed.

Campaign finance reform advocates said they were not giving up, saying they still believed they had a strong argument to make at the district court level if the FEC chooses to defend the current rules.

“The Court of Appeals got it wrong,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21. “There is no way Congress enacted a statute to result in no disclosure of contributors when the statute calls for all disclosure of contributors.”

Wertheimer said his group would also continue to press the Internal Revenue Service to scrutinize the activities of groups such as Crossroads GPS that claim to be nonprofit social welfare organizations.

But he admitted that in the prospect of forcing such organizations to reveal their donors this year has been effectively shut down.

“They’ll go back to doing electioneering and claim that their campaign ads are not campaign ads,” Wertheimer said.

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Twitter: @mateagold

Meta anticipated earning about 10% of its total annual revenue, or $16 billion, from advertising for scams and banned items, according to internal documents reviewed by Reuters. The documents reveal that for at least three years, the company failed to stop a significant number of ads exposing its billions of users on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to fraudulent schemes, illegal casinos, and banned medical products. On average, around 15 billion “higher risk” scam ads, showing clear signs of fraud, were displayed daily on these platforms. Meta reportedly generates about $7 billion annually from these scam ads.

Many of these ads were linked to marketers flagged by Meta’s internal systems. However, the company only bans advertisers if fraud is at least 95% certain according to its systems. If less certain but still suspect, Meta imposes higher ad rates as a penalty instead of outright banning them. This approach aims to deter dubious advertisers without fully eliminating them. The company’s ad-personalization system also ensures that users who click on scam ads see more of them based on their interests.

The documents create an image of Meta grappling with the extent of abuse on its platforms while hesitating to take stronger actions that could impact its revenue. The acceptance of revenue from suspicious sources highlights a lack of oversight in the advertising industry, as noted by fraud expert Sandeep Abraham. Meta’s spokesperson, Andy Stone, counters that the documents provide a biased view and argues that the actual share of revenue from scam ads would be lower than estimated. He claimed the plan aimed to validate investments in combating fraud.

Stone mentioned that Meta has significantly reduced user reports of scam ads globally and removed millions of scam ad content in recent efforts. The company aims for major reductions in scam ads in the upcoming year. Despite this, internal research indicates that Meta’s platforms are central to the global fraud economy, with one presentation estimating they contribute to a third of all successful fraud in the U. S. Competitors were noted to have better systems to combat fraud.

As regulators step up pressure for stronger consumer protections, the documents reveal the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Meta for financial scam ads. In Britain, regulators identified Meta as the source of over half of the payment-related scam losses in 2023. The company has acknowledged that addressing illicit advertising may hurt its revenue.

Meta is investing heavily in technology and has plans for extensive capital expenditures in AI. CEO Mark Zuckerberg reassured investors that their advertising revenue can support these projects. The internal documents suggest a careful consideration of the financial impact of increasing measures against scam ads, indicating that while the company intends to reduce illicit revenue, it is wary of the potential business implications.

Despite planning to diminish scam ads’ revenue share, Meta is bracing for regulatory fines, estimating penalties that could reach up to $1 billion. However, these fines are viewed as comparatively minor against the income from scam ads, which already generates significant revenue. The leadership’s strategy shows a tendency to react to regulatory pressure rather than implementing proactive measures to vet advertisers effectively. Stone disputed claims that Meta’s policy is to act only under regulatory threat.

Meta has set limits on how much revenue it can afford to lose from actions against suspect advertisers. In early 2025, a document revealed that the team reviewing questionable ads was restricted to a loss of no more than 0.15% of company revenue, which equated to around $135 million from Meta’s total of $90 billion in the same period. A manager noted that this revenue cap included both scam ads and harmless ads that might be mistakenly blocked, indicating strict financial boundaries in their approach.

Under increasing pressure to manage scams more effectively, Meta’s executives proposed a moderate strategy to CEO Mark Zuckerberg in October 2024. Instead of a drastic approach, they suggested targeting countries where they anticipated regulatory action. Their goal was to reduce the revenue lost to scams, illegal gambling, and prohibited goods from approximately 10.1% in 2024 to 7.3% by the end of 2025, with further reductions planned for subsequent years.

A surge in online fraud was noted in 2022, when Meta uncovered a network of accounts pretending to be U. S. military members trying to scam Facebook users. Other scams, such as sextortion, were also rising. Yet, at that time, Meta invested little in automated systems to detect such scams and categorized them as a low-priority issue. Internal documents showed efforts were mainly focused on fraudsters impersonating celebrities, which threatened to alienate advertisers and users alike. However, layoffs at Meta affected the enforcement team, as many working on advertiser rights were let go, and resources shifted heavily toward virtual reality and AI projects.

Despite layoffs, Meta claimed to have increased its staff handling scam advertising. However, data from 2023 revealed that Meta was ignoring about 96% of valid scam reports filed by users, suggesting a significant gap in their response to customer concerns. The safety staff aimed to improve this by reducing the number of dismissed reports to no more than 75% in the future.

Instances of user frustration were evident, such as a recruiter for the Royal Canadian Air Force who lost access to her account after being hacked. Despite multiple reports to Meta, her account remained active, even sharing false cryptocurrency investment opportunities that defrauded her connections. Reports indicated that she had many people flag her account, but it took about a month before Meta finally removed it.

Meta refers to scams that do not involve paid ads as “organic,” which include free classified ads, fake dating profiles, and fraudulent medical claims. A report from December 2024 stated that users face approximately 22 billion organic scam attempts each day, alongside 15 billion scam ads, highlighting the company’s ongoing struggle to manage fraud effectively. Internal documents suggest that Meta’s efforts to police fraud are not capturing much of the scam activity occurring across its platforms.

In Singapore, police shared a list of 146 scams targeting local users, but Meta staff found that only 23% of these scams broke the platform’s policies. The remaining 77% went against the spirit of the rules but not the exact wording. Examples of unchecked scams included fake offers on designer clothes, false concert tickets, and job ads pretending to be from major tech firms. In one case, Meta discovered scam ads claiming to belong to the Canadian prime minister, yet the existing rules wouldn’t flag the account.

Even when advertisers are found to be scamming, the rules can be lenient. Small advertisers need to be flagged for scams eight times before being blocked, while larger ones can have over 500 complaints without being shut down. Some scams generated significant revenue; for example, four removed ads were linked to $67 million monthly.

An employee initiated reports highlighting the “Scammiest Scammer” each week to raise awareness, but some flagged accounts remained active for months. Meta tried to deter scammers by charging them more in ad auctions, labeling this practice “penalty bids. ” Advertisers suspected of fraud would have to bid higher amounts, thus reducing competition for legitimate advertisers. Meta aimed to decrease scam ads from this approach, which showed some success, resulting in fewer scam reports and a slight dip in overall ad revenue.

With information from Reuters

The annual TV licence fee is set to rise in April 2026

Calls have been made to scrap the BBC TV licence fee and introduce either advertising or a paywall system before the annual price increase in April. A new online petition has urged the Government to make changes to the TV licence system.

The current fee stands at £174.50 and households must pay this if they watch or record live television, or face potential fines. This charge usually increases alongside September’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate, which reached 3.8 per cent.

Such a rise would push the licence fee up by £6.65 to £181.15 for the 2026/27 financial year. The Daily Record reports that this isn’t guaranteed and awaits confirmation from the UK Government later this month, typically around the Autumn Budget on November 26.

From April 1, 2024, the UK Government determined the licence fee would increase annually with CPI inflation for the Charter period’s remaining four years. The BBC’s current Charter continues until the end of 2027.

Campaigner David Gilmore contends that “even if you don’t watch the BBC you still have to pay for it”. He continued: “You don’t have to pay for content put on by theatres or cinemas if you don’t watch it so why should you be required to pay the BBC if you don’t watch their content?”

The petition titled “Scrap the BBC TV licence and replace funding with adverts or paywall” appears on the UK Government’s petitions-parliament website. At the time of reporting, it had over 1,300 signatures.

The petition needs 10,000 signatures to receive a written response and at 100,000 signatures, it would be considered for debate in Parliament. The petition can be viewed online here.

Other calls to change the TV licence

Over 15,200 people have signed a similar petition, urging the UK Government to cover the TV licence fee for all State Pensioners and those who reach the current official retirement age of 66. As per the current rules, only those over the age of 75 who are receiving Pension Credit are entitled to a free TV licence, saving them £174.50 on the annual fee.

Michael Thompson, the creator of the petition, argues that “many pensioners live on the breadline with only the TV for company”.

He further stated: “With the cost of food soaring and utility bills ever higher, we feel there is a desperate need to provide all pensioners with at least this concession.”

Mr Thompson added: “We feel it is a double outrage that those who have given their all to this country in taxes and raising children have to pay a TV licence fee and are only exempt if they receive means-tested Pension Credit. Meanwhile, some media figures draw huge salaries.”

The “Fund free TV licences for all pensioners” petition can also be seen on the UK Government’s petitions-parliament website.