My associate Isabel Miller and I worked on a story last week about paid influencers in campaigns. We decided to look into it after reading news reports about how the Chicago Teachers Union has been using paid influencers in its battle to control the elected Chicago school board and Mayor Brandon Johnson is also using them in his own reelection campaign.
Trouble is, the union and Johnson have not been disclosing that those influencer videos touting candidates are actually paid advertisements.
If you’re online at all, you know about these influencers. They’re usually young and some have built large followings by providing entertaining and informative content on whatever social media outlets they post on.
For the most part, it’s legal conduct. But campaigns not disclosing influencers’ official campaign involvement appears to be illegal under current state law, which we will get to in a bit. And since the state statute doesn’t specifically mention “influencers,” some folks want to make extra special sure that they’re covered.
For example, Rep. Curtis Tarver, D-Chicago, hasn’t yet filed a bill, nor has he apparently found a vehicle bill for the upcoming fall veto session. As mentioned above, a new law might not even be strictly necessary and, whatever the case, the Legislature has not sent a single campaign reform package to the governor’s desk in years (a topic for another day). But Tarver said he plans to introduce legislation requiring social media influencers to disclose when they’re being paid to push political messages.
During an interview with WGN Political Editor Tahman Bradley late last month, Tarver said the disclosure about who or what is paying for the content could appear on screen or be spoken, and that both the campaign and the influencer should be held responsible if that disclaimer is missing.
Tarver said proposed language is with the Illinois Legislative Reference Bureau and that he hopes to move it during the fall veto session.
The Illinois Election Code already requires a political committee paying for communications directed at voters and mentioning a candidate to ensure its name “is identified clearly within the communication as the payor.”
State statute doesn’t mention influencers, but a political committee that pays someone to publish an online post is still responsible for ensuring the post identifies the committee as the payor, said Illinois State Board of Elections spokesperson Matt Dietrich.
“The onus is on the committee to include attribution on the video, or social media post, etc., of ‘Paid for by,’” Dietrich said. “Only the committee, not the influencer, is obligated to follow the rules of the Campaign Finance Act.”
That’s the crucial gap that Tarver wants to close.
“The campaign knows they’re paying the influencer for the purpose of influencing individuals, and the influencer knows they’re being paid to do so,” Tarver said during the WGN segment. “The campaign may disclose on a quarterly basis, or something along those lines, or weekly whereas the influencer is in real time. So both of them should be obligated to do so.”
Currently, those payments must also be disclosed on the committee’s quarterly campaign finance report. The election code requires committees to list the “full name and mailing address” of anyone paid more than $150 in aggregate during the reporting period, along with the amount, date and purpose of the expenditure.
If a campaign uses a consultant to recruit and pay influencers, the report can’t always stop at the consultant. Once payments to the consultant reach $3,000 during the quarterly reporting period, existing state statute requires the committee to disclose how much went to each influencer, why they were paid and who benefited if the consultant was “only a conduit for payment to another.”
California and Texas already have requirements aimed specifically at paid political influencers.
California requires influencers to disclose when a political committee pays for a post. A new law signed this month will make the influencer and the committee jointly liable for civil or administrative penalties if the disclosure is missing. Texas requires social media users paid to post or repost political advertising to identify who paid for it.
- Northsider - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 10:29 am:
Broadly, this seems like a very good idea. I’ll reserve further comment until we see the specifics of any bill.
- Walker - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 10:36 am:
Tarver’s always worth listening to. He’s scary good.
- JS Mill - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 10:47 am:
New legislation should not be necessary if they are paid to promote a campaign.
Anything to limit so called “influencers” is good though. Do people really get influenced by them?
- River Heights PI - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 10:47 am:
Huh. I’m surprised influencers would even risk not disclosing they were paid for those posts. Most terms and conditions already require them to adhere to transparency guidelines on advertised posts at the risk of losing their platform (I believe Twitch and YouTube specifically have very strict guidelines about this). I personally don’t predict that the platforms would be willing to fight any regulation on this.
- Sue - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 10:50 am:
At least what Johnson is doing is outrageous- the woman he hired I believe Ms Cohen is on the City payroll doing work both for the mayor’s office but also the campaign at taxpayer expense- Johnson when it comes to ethics is kind of fast and lose and when anyone complains his first retort is racism
- Matty - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 10:59 am:
While I have never seen such content of “influencers” in the political realm, this is a good idea.
Until last week’s post, I was not aware that this was a thing.
- Candy Dogood - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 11:24 am:
===“Only the committee, not the influencer, is obligated to follow the rules of the Campaign Finance Act.”===
I would imagine that the campaign committee would have some kind of obligation to include in any contract with a vendor that they’re paying to contact voters with a message that the vendor that is releasing the message would identify that the message is paid for by the campaign.
I can’t imagine that these arrangements are as informal as “I give you $1,000 and you give me a post talking about my candidate” and if they are, I still think the campaign should be dinged.
Strengthen the statute if we need to, but to me this seems along the same lines of someone just writing a check to a vendor to do whatever, and then the vendor has no obligation to follow the law.
- Banish Misfortune - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 11:37 am:
I think we all understand that when almost anyone recommends a product, a person, an event, an opinion on any of the social media platform that the are receiving compensation of some sort. We just deal with it at the commercial level. For politics I think they should acknowledge that they are being paid.
- It's always Sunny in Illinois - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 11:39 am:
Johnson when it comes to ethics is kind of fast and lose and when anyone complains his first retort is racism
CTU Playbook…..he comes by it honestly…
- JS Mill - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 12:40 pm:
=At least what Johnson is doing is outrageous- =
Yeah, what next? Maybe he will offer people $5,000 for their votes.
- Skokie Man - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 1:13 pm:
=Anything to limit so called “influencers” is good though. Do people really get influenced by them?=
This reminds me a lot of discussions 20 years ago around “blogger ethics” as the blogosphere grew. Various rules and guardrails were proposed for folks who wrote blogs (like this one) while mainstream columnists traded access for favorable coverage or, in some cases like Armstrong Williams, traded bags of cash for favorable coverage.
Ultimately, it became clear that institutions with power and influence were trying to force higher disclosure and ethics requirements for independent bloggers than they ever followed themselves. They wanted to protect their own power.
If new rules and requirements will be placed on “influencers” (and I’m curious how that will be defined), the same rules need to apply across the board to blogs, newsletters, magazines, newspapers, TV shows, etc.
- Annonin' - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 1:17 pm:
Whow….let’s not rush. Some of might want to dip a ladle in
- Three Dimensional Checkers - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 1:31 pm:
The Board of Ethics made Brandon Johnson’s campaign return numerous contributions from City contractors. His Chief Strategy Officer or whatever gave his campaign $100 a month for years before he hired her. Now this and Ms. Cohen’s hiring. In my personal experience, the administration’s treatment of transparency issues and government ethics was comically ham-handed. God only knows the rest going on behind closed doors. It is a political advertisement, no matter anyone says, and it should be disclosed to the public as such at a minimum.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 1:35 pm:
===This reminds me a lot of discussions 20 years ago around “blogger ethics”===
Meh. I don’t see it that way and I lived through that.
The bottom line is that if you’re taking campaign money to spread a candidate’s message, that has to be reported. Period.
- Dotnonymous x - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 1:52 pm:
We live in politically sneaky times, eh…the sneaky flows from the top down.
- Skokie Man - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 3:05 pm:
=The bottom line is that if you’re taking campaign money to spread a candidate’s message, that has to be reported. Period.=
That’s a 100% rational idea. However, I do not believe that the current state of the law. And I also don’t think that is what is being proposed.
I understand that candidates/committees are legally required to disclose such expenditures. But newspapers, columnists, television hosts, bloggers, etc. are not legally required to say that they got paid by said candidates/committees.
I believe the proposed bill puts new rules and disclosure requirements on “influencers” that are not applicable to traditional media or other commentators. I am happy to be corrected if that’s a misunderstanding.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 3:07 pm:
===puts new rules and disclosure requirements on “influencers” that are not applicable to traditional media or other commentators.===
Yes, because the vast majority of the traditional news media doesn’t take payoffs to make endorsements.
- Candy Dogood - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 3:48 pm:
===The bottom line is that if you’re taking campaign money to spread a candidate’s message, that has to be reported. Period. ===
I think your Wild West reference is important. Things were still illegal in the Wild West. Getting away with doing illegal things is different than them not being illegal.
===take payoffs to make endorsements. ===
Well that sounds a little like a bribe, doesn’t it?
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Tuesday, Oct 6, 26 @ 3:51 pm:
Rich is correct.
I believe the current law currently covers paid influencers.
With one caveat.
I believe the CTU ads might have purely target Michael Sacks and not mentioned any candidates.
I would presume that any advertising paid for by a PAC is intended to influence the election and so ALL paid communication should contain the disclaimer, even if all it says is “Get out and vote”.
Hell, let’s deal with push polls while we’re at it.