The role of “influencers” has taken center stage in the latest debate over how campaigns may advertise online, particularly on social media. It has also raised the question again of whether tech companies have a responsibility to vet those ads.
In February, the presidential campaign for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg bought sponsored content to be shared on popular Instagram accounts.
The sudden appearance of “meme” advertising, as some termed it, resulted in a now-familiar flurry of concerns about the process.
As a result, Facebook changed how it treats such ads. In a policy announcement shortly after a spate of news on the subject, it said, “We’re allowing US-based political candidates to work with creators to run this content, provided the political candidates are authorized, and the creators disclose any paid partnerships through our branded content tools.”
The crux is the issue of disclosure — that a person who sees the content can plainly understand that it is paid content and not organic.
But Instagram posts, memes, or other posted content negotiated with influencers in this way won’t be treated exactly the same way as standard political advertising. It won’t, for example, be listed in the ad library as a campaign ad. Standard political ads are cataloged and kept on record for seven years.
The Federal Trade Commission, for its part, voted to approve of the agency’s endorsement guidelines. FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra issued a statement on the rationale behind that review.
Among other points, he highlighted the idea that “advertisers and social media platforms are seeking big returns from influencer marketing, which can allow paid advertising to seem more authentic.” The FTC added, “When companies launder advertising by paying an influencer to pretend that their endorsement or review is untainted by a financial relationship, this is illegal payola.”
A big target of the FTC’s aim is “fake” online reviews, or reviews of products or services which were solicited through incentives. But the applicability to the Bloomberg case, and Chopra’s explicit focus on “Facebook’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube” as “major vehicles for influencer marketing campaigns” make the political aspect loom much more significantly.
The FTC isn’t the only government agency interested in paid influencers. The Food and Drug Administration also announced in recent weeks a study of how paid influencers affect public perception. Its focus is on campaigns relating to prescription drugs.
Paying for endorsements is not new, but the status of “influencers” in public perception and law is murky. The government seems unsure about it, and for now, giants such as Facebook/Instagram, Google/YouTube, and even China’s TikTok are primarily handling the question according to their internal guidelines.
An opinion piece from Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was published in various outlets just days after the swarm of policy statements and political positioning. In it, Zuckerberg renewed his call for greater regulation of his industry and website.
Zuckerberg addressed political advertising in particular, saying he believes “advertising is more transparent on Facebook than television, print or other online services.”
“We publish details about political and issue ads — including who paid for them, how much was spent, and how many people were reached — in our ads library,” he said. That ads library, however, is precisely where paid influencer content won’t go.
A Facebook spokesperson acknowledged to the Washington Examiner that “branded content is different from advertising” but pointed out that “in either case, we believe it’s important people know when they’re seeing paid content on our platforms,” again clarifying that the key is for creators and campaigns to disclose the relationship.
Facebook requires any advertiser that uses branded content tools to disclose when it pays for that content. And the company does not earn from the transaction between a campaign and an influencer. If Facebook content is “boosted,” the term for paying to have content reach more users, the material becomes subject to the rules that cover advertising.
Facebook is asking the creators related explicitly to the Bloomberg push to use the branded content tag retroactively. Bloomberg’s efforts have become the first test case in a policy the company is still working out and which for now applies only in the United States.
What Bloomberg keyed on was something President Trump’s campaign and White House have known about all along when it comes to the internet: Use it the way the users use it. That’s why Trump’s controversial Twitter account, which prompts complaints even from Attorney General William Barr, continues to have such a tremendous impact on his supporters and the entire news cycle.
It may turn out that buying and paying for pseudoviral content, as opposed to creating it organically, could be less effective than the concerns it provokes.
The FTC study aims at finding out if influencers actually have any influence — deciding if something exists before working out how to regulate it.
Caleb Howe is an editor at Mediaite, covering politics, policy, and the press, and a former web developer based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
