Facebook forming own political action committee

Facebook said Monday that it has filed the paperwork to start its own political action committee, The Hill newspaper reports.

"FB PAC will give our employees a way to make their voice heard in the political process by supporting candidates who share our goals of promoting the value of innovation to our economy while giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected," a Facebook spokesperson said.

According to The Hill, reports had surfaced earlier that Facebook had registered the domain names FBPAC.org and FBPAC.us. Facebook has never backed individual political candidates before, but its lobbying presence in Washington D.C. has been growing in recent years.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Facebook's quick growth has created "a need to protect itself from government policies, such as potentially tough online privacy regulations," and the paper paints FB PAC as the next step in the company's political evolution. In the first half of 2011, the company spent $550,000 lobbying federal officials, up from $207,878 spent in all of 2009.

From the Times:

Corporations are not allowed to give money directly to candidates. But many companies form PACs, which are funded by voluntary employee contributions.

The PAC then makes contributions to political candidates. Companies often strategically hedge their bets by giving to key Democrats and Republicans on congressional committees that handle legislation covering their industry.

In 2010, Facebook employees leaned heavily toward Democrats. Around 80 percent of the $50,470 contributed by Facebook employees went to Democrats.

Ad Week reports that Facebook has recently put some Washington insiders on its payroll. Earlier this month, Erskine Bowles, the former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, joined the company's board of directors. In June, the company named former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart a vice president of global communications.