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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Paying "influencers" to plug a brand without a disclosure of payment violates the FTC's endorsement rule.[1] It's considered false advertising. So "brands" are the deceivers here.

This has been enforced on TV for decades. You see fine print in commercials when someone endorses something. New medium, same rules.

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/04/ftc-s...

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But there are many movies, series and other kinds of shows that endorse a brand (e.g. by using a certain kind of tablet) that do not have a fine print. How does it work there ?

Possibly in the credits?

Movies, etc are works of fiction, people are not.

You could say that a lot of the social profiles involved (i.e. the influencers) are already "works of fiction". It's "The Truman Show" on a planetary level, only this time is all voluntary.

This right here. It's a fine line. I feel like the parent comment is implying like it's an easily exploited line but that's my personal intuition so I'll defend it in isolation. Put simply, if Michael Jordan, Shaq, or any other signature memeber of the NBA told me how to dunk better, I'd probably listen because their real world reputation has already informed me that they're skilled at the thing they're advertising about. I trust them, not because I admire them but because they are proven craftsmen of the thing they are discussing. They might be discussing it for profit in this instance, but in the real world they have shown themselves to be above average men of skill and for that reason I am interested in their knowledge.

If Thor and the Avengers discover how to beat Thanos because they used a search engine on iOS instead of android I might get pretty hyped because I really like that franchise, but I know at a fundamental level that they're fake people achieving fake success against a fake villain. The same cannot be said about professional athletes, chefs, academics, or others who compete in a competitive BUT ALSO REAL environment.

Then the two fake accounts from the article would be exempted, if the owners would acknowledge that the girls are just fictional characters?

> if the owners would acknowledge that the girls are just fictional characters

Then they wouldn't get the brand deals to begin with so I don't see the problem here ;-)

Things are getting a bit recursive now. This thread was discussing the ethics and legality of the phenomenon of paying influencers to plug products in the first place. The article is about exploiting that phenomenon.

That said, the accounts in the article are fake, yes, but they claim to be real. That's not fiction, it's fraud. If they had set up the accounts to clearly state that they are fictional characters, and still gotten paid to endorse products, then it's a lot more like product placement in movies.

(Hmm, I wonder if you could actually pull something like this off. Most major social media celebrities do appear to be fairly highly engineered personas, the leap to pure fiction doesn't seem to be that big)

If people don't understand that what they see on instagram is a work of fiction that isn't representative of the person they are gravely misleaded.

In a sense, we expect there to be actual products in movies. This sort of thing makes movies and shows more realistic. And sometimes they aren't getting paid for it.

But when they are, there are laws (sometimes bad ones): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement#United_State...

Honestly, I am personally less worried about this sort of advertising than I am with certain children's films, whose sole purpose seems to be selling children a new line of crap. It has happened since I was young, with "Care Bears". It seems the most recent example is probably "The Emoji Movie".

> In a sense, we expect there to be actual products in movies.

Unless it's a documentary, absolutely not. I "need" to know whether a character is drinking water or soda or coffee or wine, but not what brand. Make one up, it's more interesting. The realism should come from other things than brands of all things... if that even moves the needle, the movie is trash anyway.

And yes, a lot of trash is called movies, and a lot of shills-du-jour are called actors. So? Compared with craftsmen they are nothing and produce nothing. Rather than accepting that as normal, they overstayed my welcome. They're not part of my world, I don't feed them and I don't let their crap into my brain.

> Make one up, it's more interesting.

Or if you insist on using real products for the sake of realism, at least use them at a rate consistent with reality.

The number of Microsoft products and forced close-ups in "Get Out" was jarring.

The new Twin Peaks has been confusing me by prominently displaying several different computer/phone brands. I'm not sure whether they've somehow taken on multiple sponsors for the same kind of thing, which seems unusual, or Lynch is trying to make some sort of statement.

Partnerships with companies are normally specified/thanked in the film's end credits.

As I understand it, using the hashtag #ad or #sponsored is pretty widespread now for this reason.

That's unlikely to comply with FTC rules. The disclosure has to be clear and upfront. FTC talks about above the fold, for example.

It almost certainly doesn't comply with UK rules.

The FTC actually says explicitly that starting a Twitter post with #ad is OK [0]. They don't mention Instagram in that document. I imagine the legally can't be overly prescriptive due to first amendment issues.

FTC sent notices out to people using "creative" tags on Instagram like #sp or #partner. They did not send notices to people using #ad. I would take that as a sign that they think #ad is reasonable for now.

> What about a platform like Twitter? How can I make a disclosure when my message is limited to 140 characters?

"The FTC isn’t mandating the specific wording of disclosures. However, the same general principle – that people get the information they need to evaluate sponsored statements – applies across the board, regardless of the advertising medium. The words “Sponsored” and “Promotion” use only 9 characters. “Paid ad” only uses 7 characters. Starting a tweet with “Ad:” or “#ad” – which takes only 3 characters – would likely be effective."

[0] - https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftc...

> This has been enforced on TV for decades. You see fine print in commercials when someone endorses something. New medium, same rules.

From 2018 on, the EU will enforce it on all online media, including YouTube and Instragam. This is going to be very interesting.

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