The Federal Election Commission couldn’t reach consensus at a meeting...

and other political committees, and asked if those qualified for the “small item” or “impracticable” exemptions from disclaimer rules. “Standard ads” on Facebook give the advertiser up to 25 text characters in the title and 135 in the body. “Sponsored stories” provide zero to 100 text characters, though they lack “communicative content” beyond a note that a Facebook user’s friend “likes” the advertiser’s page, a friend has “checked in” to an advertiser’s offsite location, or the ad simply republishes a post on the advertiser’s Facebook page. The first draft by commission staff said the ads didn’t qualify for either exemption. But based on an opinion from an earlier Google request, staff said the ads don’t need to include disclaimers, provided that the linked website or Facebook page includes a full disclaimer and the disclaimer and ad are “paid for and authorized by the same person or persons.” In the second draft, staff said the Facebook ads indeed qualified for the “impracticable” exemption. In standard ads, required disclaimers would “consume much to most of the text characters available to the ad payor” -- 57 characters alone for the phrase “Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee,” the second draft said. Sponsored stories “would not accommodate any type of additional disclaimer, regardless of length.” The draft continues: “Although, in theory, it may be technologically possible for Facebook to modify the character limitations available in its advertising program to accommodate the Commission’s standard disclaimers applicable to political advertising, the Commission’s disclaimer exceptions ... take an entity’s existing advertising model as it is,” not requiring, for example, that bumper stickers “be made bigger” to include a disclaimer. The second draft also declined to state that a full disclaimer on a linked page satisfied the rule, which would answer “a question not asked” by Facebook. Since staff decided the ads fall under the impracticable exemption, no disclaimer of any kind is required, the draft said. It’s also not necessarily “viable” to require a modified disclaimer in the case of an advertiser whose ad links to a third-party landing page over which the advertiser has no control, staff said. In a third draft, submitted by Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, Facebook’s ads were again judged ineligible for either the small or impracticable exemptions. But that draft, which appears to repeat much of the first draft’s argument, said the disclaimer rules could be satisfied by “technological means,” such as “if the ads contain a rollover display or link to a website or Facebook page containing a full disclaimer.” In a section unique to the third draft, the opinion states that “technological innovation may promote compliance with campaign finance laws,” pointing to a recent rule change by the California Fair Practices Commission that suggests small ads use features such as “rollover displays, links to a webpage, or ‘other technological means’ to meet disclosure requirements.” A full disclaimer at the linked page, a rollover, or some future mechanism for delivering a disclaimer would all satisfy the requirement, the third draft said: “The essential requirement is that identifying information about the source of the advertisement ... be provided to the public.” At Wednesday’s meeting, commissioners “did not reach consensus” to approve a draft, the commission said in a notice Thursday. The commissioners voted on the second and third drafts. Both votes failed 3-3, a spokeswoman told us. The advisory opinions are available at http://xrl.us/bkrvm3.