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Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules

reuters.com

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Re: Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules

#61

Post by jasode »

k1rcher wrote: post #57
eli wrote: post #44

US law already requires influencers to disclose ads. (And the FTC says that US law includes foreigners whose audience is reasonably likely to include Americans) https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/dis...

This is enormously surprising to me. I can't seem to find any links to official legal code or documents on that page (seems to be a guide for influencers). What I'm specifically interested in, is what happens when as an influencer you _don't_ disclose an ad? Are there fines? Is it a series of "stern warnings", akin to the Comcast emails you'd get for pirating big Hollywood studio movies from public trackers on a home…

>What I'm specifically interested in, is what happens when as an influencer you _don't_ disclose an ad? Are there fines?

Of course, not everyone is caught and punished but if you're big enough to attract the scrutiny of the FTC, they do issue fines for not disclosing ad sponsorship. Example:

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/ftc-fines-detox-tea-compa...

Re: Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules

#62

Post by katbyte »

hutzlibu wrote: post #35
xqcgrek2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they would earn more money from regular ad revenue, presumably. You're painting a rather bleak picture -- that the majority of creators/influencers' content is advertising. If that's the case, I'm not sure why Youtube/Instagram should also tolerate that -- it's basically spam on their platform they haven't curated through their ad network.

Spam is something nobody wants. The influencers videos quite some people want to see despite their sneaky ads. So youtube gets views, too.

Not all sponsored ads are sneaky, a number of YouTube channels I watch do hilarious skits for each one at the end of their videos which I think is a win for everyone involved.

Re: Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules

#63

Post by jjcm »

Veen wrote: post #27
jjcm wrote: post #12

Good. I'd love if we could go further and make requirements to disclaim if a photo's structure has been digitally altered. Combining these two would be very effective in increasing clarity of content online.

Digitally altered from what? All digital cameras and image processing tools "digitally alter" images.

That's why I specifically mentioned the structure of the image. You'd still have to differentiate lens corrections, but structural changes could be counted differently from color / sharpening corrections / standard postprocessing.

Re: Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules

#64

Post by heavyset_go »

xqcgrek2 wrote: post #10

Why does YouTube or Instagram tolerate sponsored content? They don't get a cut from a sponsored video or product placement, and their dominance in the advertising space means this is also cutting into their ad revenue.

Because without sponsored content, they'd have to give content creators a bigger cut of their own revenue.

Re: Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules

#65

Post by pessimizer »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #49
fouc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Around the world there are regulations for "influencers", for people with a large audience on platforms like YouTube, or Instagram, or TikTok. Those regulations make sure that if someone is paid to endorse a product, they have to declare that payment to the people watching. But.. why does no-one on TV, or film, or anywhere else have to do that? That's a quote from near the beginning of his video. Tom Scott is suppo…

The "anywhere else" just isn't true. Ads on TV as well as in the printed press and large online platforms are labeled either by law or more or less formal agreements between these publishers. The same is true for "native content" which tries to blend into the site with design and format, but is still clearly labeled as being "sponsored by BP" or whatever. Journalists at quality publications aren't allowed to accept a…

> Ads on TV as well as in the printed press and large online platforms are labeled either by law or more or less formal agreements between these publishers.

Ads on TV are literally placed in news (local and national) broadcasts with no indication that they were paid for. Every morning show has a segment where they shill products, periodic "gift guides," and people being interviewed who are headlining or keynoting local trade conventions and festivals. I don't think that there is legislation of any sort governing print ads; they're labeled to distinguish them editorially from the rest of the magazine or paper for the magazine or paper's sake whenever they're labeled. If they're disguised as a story, I've never seen them labeled at all.

On the internet paid stories get labeled a lot more often these days, but the push that made that happen is part of the same push that made influencer labeling happen, because the internet, being new, is the center of a lot of moral panics.

Re: Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules

#66

Post by jedimastert »

zinekeller wrote: post #5

A bit unrelated, but if you want a overview of sponsorships in different media platforms across different countries (mostly Britain and US though), I suggest watching Tom Scott's excellent video: https://youtu.be/L-x8DYTOv7w . (Note that the video is ~30 minutes long. It's unfortunately that complicated, even when only talking rules mainly in two countries.)

First thing I thought of as well. The hypocrisy is a bother to say the least

Re: Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules

#67

Post by manigandham »

xqcgrek2 wrote: post #10

Why does YouTube or Instagram tolerate sponsored content? They don't get a cut from a sponsored video or product placement, and their dominance in the advertising space means this is also cutting into their ad revenue.

It's not really the same ad revenue. Sponsorships are completely different campaigns and budgets from typical programmatic video or companion ads run on Youtube.

As far as YT is concerned, their ads pay for the hosting and delivery of the content, but it's the creators who actually create the content and they can include whatever they want (as long as its legal, etc) with their audience deciding if they want to deal with it or not.

Re: Paid influencers must label some posts as ads, German court rules

#69

Post by warent »

fnord77 wrote: post #52

can we stop using the euphemism "influencers"? There's several words in English to describe them. I like "shill"

I think most influencers openly communicate that they are sponsored. A shill intentionally obscures it.

In this sense it's not a euphemism, it's just a different thing altogether.

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